Paula McGlynn is a Mumbai-based Canadian actress, writer, and director. She is the CEO and Founding Director of the creative video production service Gulbadan Talkies Pvt. Ltd. and the Marathi entertainment company Bharatiya Digital Party (BhaDiPa). She is known for co-directing the Marathi web series Shanti Kranti (2021), Pandu (2019), and Once a Year (2019).
Contents
Wiki/Biography
Paula McGlynn was born on Tuesday, 8 May 1990 (age 33 years; as of 2023) in Vancouver, Canada. Her zodiac sign is Taurus. She was intrigued by filmmaking during her high school days when she watched a BBC documentary called Planet Earth in a geography class. Talking about the same in an interview, she said,
I was never a film buff, but this documentary was done splendidly. I remember thinking, it doesn’t matter what I do with my life as long as I learn filmmaking and make a career of it.”
She graduated from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). She received various awards like the Praxis Student Screenplay Award in 2011 and earned a spot in the DOXA Kris Anderson Youth Connexions program in May 2012. She completed her Film Production program in 2012, presenting her thesis film, My Uncle Terry, which was selected for the Montreal World Film Festival and Moonrise Film Festival. [1]Paula McGlynn
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 5′ 5″
Hair Colour: Blonde
Eye Colour: Light Grey
Family
Parents & Siblings
Her mother, Christine McGlynn, is a nurse.
A picture of Paula McGlynn with her mother
Husband & Children
Paula McGlynn is married to her business partner and actor Sarang Sathaye. The two started dating around 2013-14. In an interview, Sarang revealed that he and Paula first met at a party at a Toronto festival.
Paula McGlynn and Sarang Sathaye
Career
In May 2010, Paula McGlynn started working as a Master of Ceremonies at the North Vancouver Recreation and Culture Commission (NVRC); she was associated with NVRC for 3 years. Simultaneously, she started working as a sound engineer at Soundswrite in North Vancouver, where she would record voiceover using ProTools and do basic track editing & cleanup.
Gulbadan Talkies and BhaDiPa
At 22, following the four-year degree course, she came across an internship in India. The expenses were paid for and the grant came directly from the Government of Canada. On 26 May 2012, she relocated from Canada to India. At first, she lived in Chennai, where she used to write a paper on the Indian film industry. The research involved interviewing stars from the fraternity. At a film appreciation workshop hosted by IIT Madras, she met Anurag Kashyap and Sriram Raghavan. The highlight of the internship for McGlynn was her stay in Mumbai and Pune. It’s here that she was introduced to regional cinema. About two and a half months later, she came back to Canada, only to travel to India again for a different assignment. On this occasion, she was supposed to facilitate a partnership between the film industries of Canada and India. The objective was to kickstart a collaborative production agreement between the two nations. Once again, she left for Canada. However, McGlynn’s third trip to India changed her career trajectory. She was invited to assist with a Marathi drama romance called CRD. The casting director and chief assistant to the director were supposed to pick her up from Dadar TT since they were to travel to Pune. That’s where she met Sarang Sathaye and Anusha Nandakumar. On their way to Pune, they talked about a shared dream of establishing something around Indian cinema. In 2014, about seven months after their first meeting, they launched Gulbadan Talkies, a creative video production service boutique based in Mumbai, India.
At first, they did odd jobs like recording weddings or organising events. Later, the services also include the production of television & digital ads, brand videos, vox pop, and music videos and managing events. Gulbadan Talkies has produced content for brands such as ICICI Bank and Hindustan Unilever brands. It also made the Fisher Price’s TVC featuring Shruti Seth. The trio struck gold during their trip to Mumbai for a conference on the thriving Indian digital sphere. At the event, attendees discussed the transformation of Marathi cinema, prompting the trio to consider venturing into Marathi content creation. In April 2016, McGlynn co-founded the Marathi entertainment company BhaDiPa along with Sarang Sathaye and Anusha Nandakumar.
BhaDiPa is one of the pioneers of Marathi digital content, which gained popularity with its hit Marathi satirical talk show Casting Couch with Amey and Nipun (2016), hosted by Amey Wagh and Nipun Dharmadhikari. The show featured 7 episodes with celebrity guests such as Sai Tamhankar, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Sakhi Gokhale, Pooja Thombre, Swanandi Tikekar, Priya Bapat, and Radhika Apte. Within a month, they had 25,000 subscribers. They also released the song “Maharashtra Desha” on Maharashtra Day in 2016, sung by Mithila Palkar and Gandhaar, with direction by Sarang Sathaye. The leading Marathi digital content brand produced a variety of content from comedy, travel, music and political infotainment under its three channels BhaDipa, Bha2Pa, and Vishay Khol. In 2017, BhaDiPa organized the Marathi stand-up comedy event “Secret Marathi Stand-up” with comedians like Sarang Sathaye, Aditya Desai, Gaurav Pawar, Divya Kharnare, Omkar Rege, Darshan Sonvale, Chetan Muley, and Nipun Dharmadhikari, hosting shows in various cities. BhaDiPa won “Digital Content Company of the Year- Regional” at the Talent Track Awards 2018, and Best Web Series at the Zee Marathi Comedy Awards in 2017 and 2018. BhaDiPa ventured into music, releasing original songs like “Suii Suii” in collaboration with A V Prafullachandra on Valentine’s Day 2021. They collaborated with comedian Abish Mathew in 2018 and produced the short film “Aai ani Me” featuring Renuka Daftardar, Mrinmayee Godbole, Alok Rajwade, and Sarang Sathaye. In 2018, they created a Harry Potter spoof video, “If Hogwarts Was a Marathi School,” featuring actors Abhay Mahajan and Mohan Agashe. BhaDiPa has series like “Aaplya Baapachi” and “Miss Manners che Sanskar Varga.” By October 2018, BhaDiPa had 150 Million views across its Facebook page and YouTube Channel and more than 1 Million followers. In 2019, BhaDiPa began producing neutral election-related content for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and received funding from the Google News Initiative. They launched “Lok Manch,” interacting with political figures like Devendra Fadnavis, Raju Shetti, and Supriya Sule. In April 2019, Lokmat Media acquired a stake in Gulbadan Talkies Private Limited.
The joint managing director and editorial director of Lokmat Media Rishi Darda with the founders of Gulbadan Talkies, Paula McGlynn (CEO), Sarang Sathaye, and Anusha Nandakumar
BhaDiPa produced web series like Pandu (2019) on MX Player and Chikatgunde (2020) on YouTube. Pandu is a fun take on the everyday life of a Mumbai policeman. They collaborated with TVF for the web series “Shanti Kranti,” airing on Sony Liv on 13 August 2021. They achieved 1 million subscribers on YouTube on August 23, 2021, earning the Golden Play Button. In 2022, BhaDiPa produced “B.E.Rojgaar” in collaboration with Scaler, starring Sai Tamhankar, Sambhaji Sasane, and Jagdish Kannam, becoming one of the most-watched Marathi web series on YouTube. In the same year, Bharatiya Digital Party (BhaDiPa) won Digital Content Company of the Year – Regional at the Talent Track Awards.
Paula McGlynn, Sarang Sathaye, and Anusha Nandakumar posing at Talent Track Awards (2022)
They also created an inclusive responsive media website in 2020 with CreativeWebo Pvt. Ltd. and received Newsmakers Achievers Awards in 2022.
Others
She runs the YouTube channel PollywoodVlog, which features her weekly lifestyle vlogs about working in the film industry in India. She also has a self-titled YouTube channel. Paula is also a screenwriter with several projects in development. She has written and directed 4 short documentaries and web series and was a Sound Designer on several award-winning short films like Margaret and the Dollhouse (2011), Bread of Heaven (2012), and Free Section (2015). Paula McGlynn, a two-time awardee of the SFU Mobility fund for her film industry research. She has established a strong connection between the Indian and Vancouver film sectors. She initiated the BC – Indian Film & Media Initiative as an effort to enhance collaboration between the two industries. Additionally, she actively participates in the Indo-Canadian Business Chambers (ICBC) Media & Entertainment Committee and provides consulting services for companies in BC and India seeking market crossover opportunities in film and media.
As an Actor
Short Film
She featured in the Canadian English-language short film Across the Street (2012) in which she played the role of Swat 3. Thereafter, she appeared in various short films like Canadian English-language short film The Worst Day Ever (2012), the Marathi short film An Essay of the Rain (2017), and the Urdu-language Firdaws (2019).
Film
In 2013, she appeared in the Canadian English-language film Mop King in which she played the role of an Army Recruitment Secretary. In 2016, she made her Marathi debut with the film Pindadaan in which she played the role of a British girl named Anna, opposite the chocolate boy of the Marathi film industry Siddharth Chandekar.
In 2017, she played the role of Samantha in the Bollywood film Half Girlfriend.
In 2019, she appeared in the Marathi film Khichik. In 2024, she portrayed the role of Sonia Gandhi, the former Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, in the Hindi biographical film Main Atal Hoon (2024). The film stars Pankaj Tripathi as Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Web Series
In 2017, she appeared in the Hindi web series Girl in the City as a judge. In 2019, she played the role of Sarah Parker in the Hindi thriller web series The Final Call on ZEE5.
Paula McGlynn as Sarah Parker and Anshuman Malhotra as Dhruv Sehgal in The Final Call (2019)
In 2021, she gained popularity for appearing in the Marathi web series Shanti Kranti as Paula. In 2023, she starred in the second season of Shanti Kranti.
Awards, Honours, Achievements
- B.C. Hydro ‘Off the Grid’ Video Competition: Winner (2007)
- Vancouver Coastal Health “Cigarette Slayer” Video Competition Winner (2007)
- Praxis Student Screenplay Award My Uncle Terry (2011)
- Much Music/HP Declare Yourself Video: Top 8 Finalist (2009)
- Recognised as one of the Top 50 Most Influential Content Marketing Professionals at the Content Marketing Summit & Awards (2018)
- Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, presented at MET IoM presents SMX Entrepreneurship Summit & Awards on 5 November 2022
Paula McGlynn receiving Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year, presented at MET IoM presents SMX Entrepreneurship Summit & Awards on 5 November 2022
Favourites
- Food: Fish Tacos, Lal Math
- Marathi Film: Fandry (2013)
Facts/Trivia
- Her other name is Dev Paula. [2]Dev Paula – Twitter
- She occasionally consumes alcoholic beverages.
A snip of Paula McGlynn’s Instagram post depicting her drinking habits
- She is a non-vegetarian. [3]Paula McGlynn – Facebook
References
| ↑1 | Paula McGlynn |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Dev Paula – Twitter |
| ↑3 | Paula McGlynn – Facebook |
