Vedang Raina

Vedang Raina was born on 2 June 2000 in New Delhi into a family of Kashmiri Pandits and grew up in Mumbai.^[1][2][3][4] His grandparents hailed from Rainawari in Srinagar and both of his parents were born in Delhi but continued to frequently visit relatives in Srinagar until the 1990s exodus of Kashmiri Hindus due to militant violence in the region.^[5][6] His father, Ayush Raina, is a businessman but had previously directed the film Horror Story.^[7] He completed his schooling from Jamnabai Narsee School in Juhu and subsequently completed his BBA (Bachelor of Business Administration) from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (SVKM's NMIMS) in Vile Parle.^[8][1] He started out small with college fests and events, enjoying the time he spent on stage.^[9] Raina developed an interest in music and played the guitar years before he had thought about acting. Towards the end of his college years, he decided to venture into modelling and music.^[10] He subsequently joined an acting agency to pursue it as a career.^[11]

After modelling for several brands, Raina was scouted by Zoya Akhtar for The Archies in 2021.^[12][13] Raina claimed that he had not thought about acting professionally until that point.^[14] He was officially announced to be playing the role of Reggie Mantle in May 2022.^[15][16] It was released on Netflix in 2023. Udita Jhunjhunwala of Scroll.in wrote that he "brings the right amount of swag to the rakish Reggie".^[17]

Raina starred alongside Alia Bhatt in Vasan Bala's action thriller Jigra (2024), in which he played the younger brother of Bhatt's character, who is imprisoned in South East Asia.^[18] WION's Kriti Tulsiani thought that Raina made the most of his minimal screen time but was ultimately overshadowed by Bhatt. However, she praised the chemistry between the two.^[19] It emerged as a box-office bomb.^[20]

In 2026, Raina and Sharvari starred in Imtiaz Ali's romantic drama Main Vaapas Aaunga as a young couple separated by the 1947 Partition of India. He lent his vocals for the song "Maskara", composed by A. R. Rahman, which appears in the film.^[21] In preparation for his role as a Sikh man in pre-Partition India, Raina undertook extensive research to better understand the emotional depth of the character.^[22] In a positive review of the film for The Hindu, Anuj Kumar felt that, despite an earnest attempt, Raina's performance "suffers from a disconnect in character continuity" as he is unable to "project the inherent gravitas or enigmatic charm" that Naseeruddin Shah brings to the character's older incarnation.^[23]