Who is Mira Nair? (Besides Being The Mom of NYC Mayoral Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, That Is…)

New York City has a new presumptive Democratic mayoral primary winner, which means it also has a new frontrunner in November’s election. But what do Harry Potter, Harold & Kumar, and Denzel Washington have to do with the story of 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani? As it happens, he’s the son of successful Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair, who has been making features for nearly 40 years since her 1988 debut Salaam Bombay! received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Nair frequently works on ambitious literary adaptations: She made the 2004 version of Vanity Fair starring Reese Witherspoon, tackled a more modern classic with her adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake in 2006, and created a miniseries version of the novel A Suitable Boy in 2020, for which she spoke to Decider. But she’s probably best-known for a pair of movies produced a decade apart, one in the U.S. and the other in India.

1991’s Mississippi Masala, whose recent induction into the Criterion Collection put it back into easily accessible circulation after years of dodgy availability, is about an interracial romance between Mina (Sarita Choudhury), the daughter of Uganda Indians now living in Mississippi, and Demetrius (Denzel Washington), a local. Though the movie explores multiple dimensions of the immigrant experience through Mina’s family as well as Demetrius’s reaction to their prejudices, it’s not a preachy social-issue movie designed to beg for awards; the romance material is charming and genuinely sexy. Choudhury and Washington are both terrific (and hot), whether playing up their charisma or their real-deal acting chops. It’s precisely the movie’s dimensionality and lack of grandstanding that probably allowed Mississippi Masala to fall into relative obscurity for a time. (That, and it not being widely available for years. Mamdani himself didn’t even see it until 2011!) It is precisely the type of smart, heartfelt, romantic comedy-drama for adults that is in shorter supply than ever.

Nair also explores family and romantic dynamics in 2001’s Monsoon Wedding, an ensemble piece centering on the arranged marriage of Aditi (Vasundhara Das), from Dehli, to Hemant (Parvin Dabas), from Houston. Nair moves between characters (and languages) with an Altmanesque ease, attempting to create a more grounded version of heightened Bollywood entertainments. It’s not currently streaming, but like Mississippi Masala, it’s also a Criterion Collection selection, and still in print on Blu-ray and DVD. (Both movies are also more likely to pop up on the Criterion Channel.)

In interviews both adjacent to the primary and years earlier, Nair has spoken about her son’s influence on her work. She apparently cast Kal Penn in The Namesake because lil’ Zohan made her watch Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. (Good call from son and mom!) That wasn’t his only input on The Namesake in particular. Per an interview with film critic Sean Burns, she was offered a later-period Harry Potter sequel around the same time, and her son told her to direct The Namesake instead, assessing that “anyone” could direct Potter, while only she could make the Lahiri adaptation.

Mamdani would have been twelve or thirteen at the time; maybe a little past peak Potter obsession age, but it’s still impressive to hear about a kid shooing his mom away from taking a job aimed right at his demographic and encouraging her to pursue a passion project instead. (And, again, this interview took place well before Mamdani was on the campaign trail.) Moreover: Just think, a New York-bred politician whose wealthy parent actually makes art people love, rather than real estate deals that rip people off!

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.