Freida Pinto

Pinto was born on 18 October 1984 in Bombay (now Mumbai), Maharashtra to Mangalorean Catholic parents from Mangalore, Karnataka. Her mother, Sylvia Pinto, was the principal of St. John's Universal School in Goregaon, West Mumbai, and her father, Frederick Pinto, was a senior branch manager for the Bank of Baroda in Bandra, West Mumbai. Her elder sister, Sharon, works for NDTV.

Pinto had a middle class upbringing in the suburb of Malad, North Mumbai. She first wanted to be an actress when she was five years old, often dressing up and imitating television actors during her childhood. She later recalled being inspired by Sushmita Sen's victory in the 1994 Miss Universe competition, explaining that "the country was really proud of her, and I was like, one day, I want to do the same". Pinto attended the Carmel of St. Joseph School in Malad, North Mumbai and then studied at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai in Fort, South Mumbai. Her major was in English literature, with minors in psychology and economics. At college, she participated in amateur theatre, but declined acting and modeling assignments until her graduation in 2005.

Despite her interest in acting from an early age, Pinto was undecided on what career to take until watching Monster (2003) while at college. She stated: "I guess it was when I watched Monster... I pretty much knew. I had to find a way. I had to do something like that, something completely transformational." In 2005, Pinto began a modeling career and joined Elite Model Management India, with whom she worked for two and a half years. She was featured in several television and print advertisements for products such as Wrigley's Chewing Gum, Škoda, Vodafone India, Airtel, Visa, eBay, and De Beers.

Around the same time, Pinto began going to auditions for films and television shows. She was chosen to host Full Circle, an international travel show that aired on Zee International Asia Pacific between 2006 and 2008. The show took her to countries all over the world, including Afghanistan, Fiji, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. Her auditions for both Bollywood and Hollywood productions, including Shimit Amin's Indian Hindi-language sports film Chak De! India (2007), and for the role of Bond girl Camille Montes in Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace (2008), were largely unsuccessful. Pinto later claimed that it was a good learning experience, stating that she was "glad things happened the way they happened. I needed to be rejected, and I needed to learn that it's part of the game... I can have 100 rejections, but I'm sure there's going to be one particular thing that is almost destined for me to have."