Sakina Jaffrey
Jaffrey at the 2014Montclair Film Festival
Born	(1962-02-14)February 14, 1962 (age 63) New York City, U.S.
Education	Nightingale-Bamford School
Alma mater	Vassar College (AB)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1979–present
Spouse	Francis Wilkinson
Children	2
Parents	Saeed Jaffrey (father) Madhur Jaffrey (mother)
Relatives	Kiara Advani (cousin) Raghu Raj Bahadur (cousin)

Sakina Jaffrey (born February 14, 1962)^[1] is an American actress. Jaffrey is best known for portraying as Linda Vasquez in theNetflix original seriesHouse of Cards, and Denise Christopher in theNBC seriesTimeless.

Jaffrey was born in New York City, the youngest daughter of Indian-born parents, actress and food and travel writerMadhur Jaffrey, and actorSaeed Jaffrey. Her parents divorced when she was three years old, and she grew up estranged from her father, who subsequently moved to the United Kingdom.^[2]

She grew up in theGreenwich Village section of Manhattan, where she attendedPS 41. She later attended theNightingale-Bamford School on theUpper East Side.^[1]

Jaffrey picked up her love of Chinese culture from her elder sister, Meera. She graduated fromVassar College in 1984, with a major inChinese Language and Literature, originally planning to be a translator before she became an actress.^[3]

At the age of 17, Jaffrey made her professional acting debut in the playMarie and Bruce byWallace Shawn at the Public Theatre in New York City.^[1]

She appeared with her father in the filmMasala (1991)^[4] and with her mother inThe Perfect Murder (1988).^[5] In 2002, she appeared inThe Truth About Charlie starringMark Wahlberg.^[6] Her children Cassius and Jamila appear with her inRaising Helen (2004).^[7] Jaffrey starred in the English-language U.S.-Indiandrama filmThe Ode (2008).^[7]

She starred as Linda Vasquez, theWhite House Chief of Staff, in theNetflix seriesHouse of Cards (2013).^[8] In 2014, it was announced that she would be appearing in the second season ofFox's television seriesSleepy Hollow as Leena Reyes, the new sheriff.^[9]

From 2016 to 2018, she had a starring role in theNBC television seriesTimeless as Homeland Security Agent Denise Christopher.^[10]

She also starred as Malini Soni inThe Meyerowitz Stories, a 2017 comedy-drama film directed byNoah Baumbach and costarringDustin Hoffman andAdam Sandler.^[11]

Jaffrey lives in New York with her husband, Francis Wilkinson, a journalist, and their two children, Cassius and Jamila.^[12]

• Sakina Jaffrey onInstagram
• Sakina Jaffrey atIMDb 
• Sakina Jaffrey at theInternet Off-Broadway Database (archived)

• American film actresses
• American television actresses
• American actresses of Indian descent
• Living people
• Vassar College alumni
• Actresses from Manhattan
• 21st-century American actresses
• 20th-century American actresses
• American people of Punjabi descent
• People from Nyack, New York
• 1962 births

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from September 2013
• Articles with hCards