Richa Gangopadhyay (Originally Antara Richa Gangopadhyay) was born in a well to do Bengali family settled in United States of America. Both her father and mother are well educated and are working in big corporate there.  Her parents moved to US when she turned one, later Richa had her education at Okemos High School and also went on to major in Dietetics and Health Administration at Michigan State University, Michigan.

Richa is a regular participant at all the beauty pageants. She finished in the top ten in the Miss India USA competitions, winning a smaller prize for Miss Congeniality. She also won the Miss Michigan pageant and was later crowned Miss India USA 2007. During the same competition, she also secured the title of Miss Photogenic and qualified to represent USA in the 17th Annual Miss India Worldwide Pageant held in Johannesburg.

In 2007, she moved to Mumbai to make a career in movies. She joined an acting course in Anupam Kher’s acting school and completed her graduation there in movies. Later she went on to act in severa TV commercials like Vatika, Peter England, Malabar Gold and others.

In 2010 came her first break in films. Telugu director Sekhar Kammula found her and gave her a chance in his political drama film, Leader opposite Daggubati Rana.  The movie did reasonably well at the box office and got her a good start but that did not sustain. She did not get good offers later in Telugu. She acted in movies like Nagavalli, Mirapakaay, Sarocharu and Mirchi but never did she manage to make a major mark on audience.

After Mirchi, Richa romanced with Tollywood's Manmadhudu Akkineni Nagarjuna for Bhai. However the movie disappointed and ended as below average at box office. Post this film, Richa did not sign any Telugu film. 

However, she is doing reasonably well in Tamil film industry. She got good roles in Selva Raghavan’s Mayakkam Enna and Dharani's Osthe, the Tamil remake of the Hindi film Dabangg in which she paired up alongside Tamil Superstar Simbu. She also made her debut in her mother tongue, Bengali with a film 'Bikram Singha : The Lion Is Back' opposite popular actor Prosenjit Chatterjee. The movie is a remake of the Telugu film Vikramarkudu.

In October 2013, Richa announced in her Twitter account that she will be taking a break from her films and moved back to the USA to pursue her MBA.