Was the first woman of Indian descent to play a lead role in a Shakespearean piece on the main stage of the Stratford Festival in 51 years of the festival's history.
Born into the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. She is one of the 150,000 Parsis in the world.
Her first professional theatre job was paying the female lead in "Pericles" at the Stratford Festival.
She trained at the Birmingham Conservatory for classical training in between her first and second season at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
Discovered in her mid teens that despite dancing up to ten times a week, she would never have the turnout muscles to have a career in ballet.
She and her husband, Carlo Rota have both appeared in 24 (2001), though in different seasons. Rota appeared as Morris O'Brian in seasons five to seven, while Contractor played Kayla Hassan in the show's eighth and final season.
Got her first break at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival through an open call audition.