Balvinder Sopal

Balvinder Sopal was born on 4 December 1978 in Chatham, Medway.^[1][2] She is the eldest of four children and was brought up in Gillingham, Medway.^[3] She attended the University of Huddersfield.^[3]

Sopal made her professional acting debut as Bhelua in The Beautiful Violin at Oldham Coliseum Theatre in 2001.^[4] She then went on to appear in stage productions such as Absent Friends, Relatively Speaking and The Tales of the Harrow.^[5][6] Sopal made her onscreen debut in a 2001 episode of the BBC series Kidhaar! as Reena directed by Kate Rowland.^[5] From 2004 to 2010, she voiced Simran Kaur in the BBC Asian Network radio soap opera Silver Street.^[7][8] In 2008, she appeared in the BBC film White Girl as Fatima.^[6]

From 2009 to 2018, Sopal made numerous appearances in four British television soap operas; Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Doctors^[9] and Hollyoaks.^[10][11] In December 2019, she was cast in her first regular role in the BBC soap opera EastEnders as Suki Panesar.^[12] Her first scene aired on 27 January 2020.^[12] Suki's most notable storyline includes her on-off affair with Eve Unwin (Heather Peace), which won several awards.

In 2025, Sopal was a contestant on the twenty-third series of the BBC competition series Strictly Come Dancing.^[13] She was partnered with Julian Caillon for the series.^[14] Throughout her time on the show, Sopal broke the record for competing in the most dance-offs in the show's history, having won five and being eliminated following her sixth, in the semi-final against Amber Davies and Nikita Kuzmin.^[15]