One of Britain's best-loved Asian actresses, Archie Panjabi, last night won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her role as Kalinda Sharma in CBS TV drama 'The Good Wife'. Panjabi, who found fame in British hit films 'East is East' and 'Bend It Like Beckham', won an Emmy for her role as a law firm's in-house private investigator in the hit show. The 38-year-old triumphed over fellow 'The Good Wife' actress Christine Baranski and 'Mad Men's' Elisabeth Moss.

Accepting the award, Panjabi said "working on 'The Good Wife' for me has been like a dream come true. Thank you to everyone who voted for" Of the award she said "this is amazing for my career".

Panjabi's most well-known film roles in the UK were for 'East is East' (1999) and Gurinder Chadha's 'Bend it Like Beckham' (2002), before she won the Shooting Star Award in 2005 for her role as the title character in 'Yasmin' (2004) at the Berlin Film Festival. She has appeared in numerous TV shows including 'The Bill', 'Silent Witness' and 'Life on Mars'. Her first Hollywood role was in 2005 as a British diplomat in the Oscar-winning 'The Constant Gardener'. In 2007, Panjabi appeared with Angelina Jolie in the movie adaptation of 'A Mighty Heart', a book by Mariane Pearl, wife of the journalist Daniel Pearl, playing the role of former Wall Street Journal reporter Asra Nomani.