Sonam Kapoor Biography – an Indian Actress and Style Icon

Sonam Kapoor Ahuja (born 9 June 1985) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. She has won a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award, and from 2012 to 2016, she appeared in Forbes India‘s Celebrity 100 list based on her income and popularity.

Kapoor, the daughter of actor Anil Kapoor, began her career as an assistant director on filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s 2005 film Black. She made her acting debut in Bhansali’s romantic drama Saawariya (2007), a box office flop, and had her first commercial success with the romantic comedy I Hate Luv Storys (2010). This was followed by a series of commercial failures and repetitive roles, which garnered her negative reviews. The 2013 box office hit Raanjhanaa marked a turning point in Kapoor’s career, garnering her praise and Best Actress nominations at several award ceremonies.

Kapoor had her biggest commercial successes with supporting roles in the biopics Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013) and Sanju (2018), and a leading role in the romance Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2015); the last two rank among the highest-grossing Bollywood films. Her acclaimed portrayal of Neerja Bhanot in the 2016 biographical thriller Neerja won her the National Film Award – Special Mention and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Critics), and she followed it with a starring role in the 2018 female buddy film Veere Di Wedding, both of which rank among the highest-grossing female-led Hindi films. This was followed by two poorly received female-led films and a hiatus.

Kapoor supports raising awareness of breast cancer and LGBT rights. Known in the media for her outspoken personality, she is frequently credited as one of India’s most trendy celebrities. She is married to the businessman Anand Ahuja, with whom she has a son.

Life and Career (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Early life (1985–2006)

Kapoor was born in Chembur, Bombay (present-day Mumbai) on 9 June 1985. Her father is actor and producer Anil Kapoor, the son of the late filmmaker Surinder Kapoor and the founder of the Anil Kapoor Films Company. Her mother, Sunita, is a former model and designer. Kapoor has two younger siblings: film producer Rhea and brother Harshvardhan. She is the niece of film producer Boney Kapoor and actor Sanjay Kapoor; actress Sridevi and producer Mona Shourie (Boney’s wives) were her aunts. Kapoor’s paternal cousins are actors Arjun Kapoor, Janhvi Kapoor, and Mohit Marwah, and his maternal second cousin is actor Ranveer Singh.

The family moved to the suburb of Juhu when Kapoor was one month old. She was educated at the Arya Vidya Mandir school in Juhu, where she confessed to being a “naughty” and “carefree” child who would bully the boys. She excelled at sports such as rugby and basketball and trained in Kathak, classical music, and Latin dance. Kapoor, who practices Hinduism, states that she is “quite religious”, and that it is a way of “reminding myself that I need to be thankful for so much”.

Kapoor’s first job was as a waitress at age 15, although it lasted only a week. As a teenager, she struggled with her weight: “I had every issue related to weight that I could have. I was unhealthy, I had bad skin, and I had hair growing on my face!” Kapoor was diagnosed with insulin resistance and polycystic ovarian disease and has since begun an initiative to increase awareness of diabetes. Kapoor enrolled at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore for her pre-university education, where she studied theatre and arts. She has said she later started courses in economics and political science through the University of Mumbai correspondence program, after returning from the University of East London where she began her bachelor’s degree in the same subjects but returned to Mumbai soon after she began. Actress Rani Mukerji, a family friend, visited her family in Singapore on holiday while working on Black (2005). Kapoor, who had originally wanted to be a director and writer, expressed a desire to work as a crew member on the film. On her father’s recommendation to director Sanjay Leela Bhansali, she was appointed as his assistant.

Debut and initial struggles (2007–2012) (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

During the production of Black, Kapoor developed an interest in acting when Bhansali professed that he wanted to cast her as the lead in his next film, Saawariya. She was advised to lose weight; at the time, she weighed about 80 kilograms (180 lb). Motivated by Bhansali’s confidence in her, she lost 35 kilograms (77 lb) in two years. Kapoor studied acting with Roshan Taneja, Jayati Bhatia, and Feroz Abbas Khan, and has cited actresses Waheeda Rehman and Nutan as influences, admiring their “path-breaking films … [and] quality of doing different things”.

Released in 2007, Saawariya saw Kapoor play a Muslim woman awaiting the return of her lover opposite Mukerji, Ranbir Kapoor, and Salman Khan. It was the first Indian feature film produced by a Hollywood studio, Sony Pictures Entertainment. Saawariya proved to be a major critical and commercial failure. Writing for BBC, Jaspreet Pandohar called the film a “misfire on a massive scale”. Raja Sen of Rediff.com described her laugh as “almost as infectious as her father’s”, but wished that she had been “allowed to simper softly, instead of having a clearly overdubbed plastic giggle plastered onto her. The film earned her a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut nomination and the Stardust Award for Superstar of Tomorrow – Female.

In 2009, Kapoor played an aspiring singer opposite Waheeda Rehman and Abhishek Bachchan in the Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra-directed social drama Delhi-6. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a box-office failure. CNN-IBN‘s Rajeev Masand referred to Kapoor as a “revelation”, writing that she was “a firecracker, instinctive and uninhibited in what isn’t even a conventional female lead”. Sonia Chopra of Sify described Kapoor as an “earnest and effortless performer”, and found her character likable, despite the “typical Delhi-girl recipe”.

Kapoor’s first release in 2010 was Punit Malhotra‘s romantic comedy I Hate Luv Storys, opposite Imran Khan. She played an engaged woman who develops a one-sided attraction to her commitment-phobic co-worker. Khan said about Kapoor’s craft, “We’d be shooting a scene from multiple angles—for three or four hours you’re doing the same scene, the same lines—and here is this person [Kapoor] who brings consistency to her work, from the way she talks, to her accent.” Although Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express called Kapoor’s performance “stiff and rehearsed”, Daily News and Analysis Johnson Thomas found her “likable and believable”. I Hate Luv Storys was Kapoor’s first commercial success, earning ₹725.2 million (US$9.1 million) worldwide.

Kapoor next played the eponymous role in Aisha, an ensemble romantic comedy-drama based on Jane Austen’s novel Emma, which was produced by her sister Rhea. She described her character as “a meddlesome busybody with a passion for matchmaking and playing Cupid”. Aisha also starred Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar, Amrita Puri, Anand Tiwari, Arunoday Singh, and Lisa Haydon. An Indo-Asian News Service reviewer thought that Kapoor had stood out in the ensemble with her performance, making “the best of a rather rare opportunity for an Indian leading lady to be part of a Bollywood film that salutes Victorian mores and Delhi’s elitist affectations in one clean cool sweep”.

In 2011, Kapoor starred in Thank You, a comedy about three women who teach a lesson to their philandering husbands. The film, along with Kapoor’s performance, received poor reviews; Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India called her “terribly out of sync”. She then played the romantic interest of Shahid Kapoor in the Pankaj Kapur-directed romantic drama, Mausam, which was also poorly received. Despite doubts about her acting ability, critic Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV thought Kapoor conveyed “the essential vulnerability of a girl forever under duress, bringing out just the right mix of feminine fragility and native resolve”. The following year, Kapoor played a computer hacker opposite Abhishek Bachchan, Neil Nitin Mukesh, and Bipasha Basu in the Abbas–Mustan-directed heist film, Players, a remake of 2003’s The Italian Job. Her role was originally written for Katrina Kaif, who was unavailable for the film. Although journalists had high expectations, it failed commercially, and Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com remarked derogatively that Kapoor “truly entertains with her childish attempt to pass off as a gold-medalist hacker”. Kapoor’s string of poorly received films began to hinder her career.

Establishing with Raanjhanaa (2013–2015) (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Kapoor’s role in the Anand L. Rai-directed romantic drama Raanjhanaa (2013) marked a turning point in her career; Geety Sahgal called it her best performance to date in The Indian Express. Kapoor’s role was that of Zoya Haider, a young Muslim student from Varanasi who is drawn into politics after the murder of her Sikh lover. To prepare for her part, Kapoor interacted with students, attended workshops, and practiced with theatre groups associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University. She also studied Jaya Bachchan‘s work in Guddi (1971), which she felt was “perfect” for her role. Discussing her character in the film, Kapoor described her approach to acting: “I have always tried to do different films and … I try to be different for every character. I like doing different things to challenge myself in every way and don’t like to repeat myself.” Although Raanjhanaa received mixed-to-positive reviews, her performance was praised; Rajeev Masand wrote that she “does some of her best work here, going smoothly from innocent to manipulative to cynical, without ever losing Zoya’s inherent vulnerability”. With worldwide earnings of over ₹1 billion (US$13 million), Raanjhanaa was a commercial success and Kapoor received her first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

Kapoor followed the success of Raanjhanaa with a brief appearance in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013), a biopic on athlete Milkha Singh. She received ₹11 (14¢ US) for the film, made on a budget of ₹300 million (US$3.8 million), citing her admiration for director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and the film itself as reasons for her appearance. Critically praised, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag was one of the top-grossing Bollywood films of the year. Critic Sarita A. Tanwar wrote in her review that despite her minor role, Kapoor proved to “be the perfect warm counterpart to Milkha”. Both Raanjhanaa and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag received Filmfare Awards for Best Film nominations, the latter of which won.

In 2014, Kapoor portrayed the banker Mayera Sehgal opposite Ayushmann Khurrana and Rishi Kapoor in the Yash Raj Films comedy-drama Bewakoofiyaan, in a role which film critic Anupama Chopra found to be poorly written and an “uphill climb”. She next starred with Fawad Khan in the romantic comedy Khoobsurat, an adaptation of the 1980 film of the same name, playing the role that had originally been given to Rekha. Though she received a Filmfare Best Actress nomination for her performance, critics were divided in their response, with Shilpa Jamkhandikar of Reuters calling her “loud and exasperating”, and Andy Webster of The New York Times comparing her to a young Anne Hathaway and highlighting her “Julia Roberts-like smile”. Later that year, she met entrepreneur-model Sahir Berry on a social media network and began a romantic relationship with him, although they broke up a few months later.

In 2015, Kapoor starred as a runaway bride in Dolly Ki Doli, a heist comedy co-starring Pulkit Samrat, Rajkummar Rao, and Varun Sharma. Mint‘s Udita Jhunjhunwala criticized Kapoor’s performance in the film, writing that her “range is too limited to bring alive a character that may have had heaps of potential on paper”. Shubhra Gupta wrote: “Kapoor is in almost every frame, and should have filled them all. But the treatment of the character shows up her limitations.” Despite the negative reviews for her performance, she was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. While filming Sooraj R. Barjatya’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo with Salman Khan in Gondal, Gujarat in February 2015, Kapoor was diagnosed with swine influenza, from which she recovered the following month. Kapoor portrayed Rajkumari Maithili Devi, a princess looking for love. The film became one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time. She was praised by Rachit Gupta for her credibility as a royal, and Komal Nahta thought that the role was significant enough to be a turning point in her career. However, she won a Golden Kela Award for Worst Actress.

Female-led films and marriage (2016–2018) (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Following an appearance in the music video of Coldplay’s “Hymn for the Weekend” (featuring Beyoncé), Kapoor starred in Ram Madhvani’s biographical thriller Neerja (2016). She was cast as the eponymous air hostess Neerja Bhanot, who died while saving the passengers of the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73 in 1986. Kapoor felt responsible for the project because it is about real events, and met Bhanot’s family in preparation for her role. The film garnered high critical acclaim, and several commentators considered Kapoor’s performance to be her best to date. Raja Sen found her performance to be career-defining, while Hindustan Times‘ Rohit Vats wrote that “she carries [the film] entirely on her shoulder. She looks earnest, scared, benevolent, and bold, all at the same time.” Sen listed Kapoor as the best actress in Hindi cinema in 2016, while Rajeev Masand invited her to his annual best actresses roundtable. In addition to several other accolades, Kapoor won a National Film Award – Special Men Mention and a Filmfare Best Actress (Critics), in addition to a Filmfare Best Actress nomination. With a worldwide gross of over ₹1.35 billion (US$17 million), Neerja emerged as one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films featuring a female protagonist.

Kapoor said that despite her brief role, she agreed to the project to work with Hirani and to reunite with Ranbir Kapoor after her debut. Anna M. M. Vetticad criticized the film’s attempt to whitewash Dutt’s misdeeds, but found Kapoor’s portrayal of her small role “sweet”. On the other hand, Rajeev Masand called the film “consistently engaging”, and wrote that Kapoor “hit the right notes as Sanjay Dutt‘s [partner]”. Sanju broke several box-office records, becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films.

Career fluctuations and hiatus (2019–present)

In 2019, Kapoor starred in the coming-of-age film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (as Sonam K Ahuja), co-starring her father, Juhi Chawla, and Rajkummar Rao. She played a closeted lesbian who has trouble coming out to her conservative family. She agreed to the project to break stereotypes about same-sex relationships in India. Critics were encouraged by its positive representation of homosexuality, but it failed to do well commercially. Kapoor next starred in Abhishek Sharma’s film adaptation of Anuja Chauhan’s romantic comedy novel The Zoya Factor, in which she played the titular character of a clumsy woman who becomes a lucky charm for the Indian cricket team. Ankur Pathak of HuffPost was appreciative of her comic timing but bemoaned that “she’s out of depth in scenes that require her to exhibit more emotion”.

In the media (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Born into a prominent actor family, Kapoor has appeared in the media from an early age and is one of the highest-paid actresses in Bollywood. After the success of Raanjhanaa and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, she was cited by Subhash K. Jha as one of the top actresses in India, though a commentator for Rediff.com notes that several of her films have been commercial failures. In 2009 she was the first Indian actress to appear on The Hollywood Reporter‘s “Next Generation: Asia Class”, a list of newcomers in film. Outspoken publicly, Kapoor’s comments about contemporaries and others in the Indian film industry have occasionally caused controversy. In a 2015 interview, she acknowledged that her opinions often get her into trouble, but remarked that “I believe it pays to be honest in the long run”.

As well as endorsing brands such as Colgate, Electrolux, Lux, Mont Blanc, Oppo Mobile, Salvatore Ferragamo S.p.A., and Signature, Kapoor is the Indian ambassador for international cosmetics manufacturer L’Oréal. In 2011, she was named Brand Ambassador of the Year at the NDTV Good Times Gadget Guru Awards. Rediff.com reported in 2012 that she received ₹30 million (US$380,000) for each endorsement, making her one of the highest-paid celebrity endorsers in India. In 2020, Kapoor was among several Bollywood actors who were called out for posting Instagram messages showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, despite their previous work advertising skin-lightening products which perpetuate colorism.

Activism (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Kapoor has supported charitable organizations for various causes. In 2009, she participated in the International Indian Film Academy Awards fashion show, which supports widows and orphans of Indian film-industry workers. On behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), she wrote to Maharashtra Home Minister R. R. Patil, protesting against the use of glass-coated manja (used on fighter kites), which kills birds who become entangled in it. In 2018, however, she attracted some controversy when she declared her support for Salman Khan upon his conviction for hunting an endangered blackbuck, despite her previous criticism of trophy hunting.

Kapoor auctioned some of her clothes on stylist Pernia Qureshi’s online fashion boutique, Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop, in 2012. The proceeds were donated to Smile Foundation, a child-welfare organization. In 2014, she attended a charitable art exhibition organized by the Rouble Nagi Art Foundation and donated clothing and accessories to a website raising funds for In Defense of Animals. Kapoor walked the ramp in a 2015 fashion show by Manish Malhotra for the Mijwan Welfare Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering girls. The same year, she appeared with Hrithik Roshan in the music video for “Dheere Dheere”, whose profits were donated to charity. In 2017, she hosted a dinner to raise funds for children suffering from cancer.

Filmography (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Films

Music video appearances (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

Awards and nominations (Sonam Kapoor Biography)

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