Sonam Kapoor

Sonam Kapoor Ahuja (pronounced [soːnəm kəˈpuːr]; born 9 June 1985) is an Indian former actress who works in Hindi films. She has received several awards, including a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award. Kapoor appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list from 2012 to 2016.

The daughter of actor Anil Kapoor, Sonam 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 the raising awareness of breast cancer and LGBT rights. Known in the media for her outspoken personality, Kapoor is often a subject of social media trolling. She is married to the businessman Anand Ahuja, with whom she has a son.

Early life and background

Kapoor was born in the 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 Harsh Varrdhan. 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, Khushi Kapoor and Mohit Marwah, and actor Ranveer Singh is her maternal second cousin.

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 University of Mumbai correspondence programme, after returning from 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.

Career

Early work and struggles (2007–2012)

During the production of Black, Kapoor developed an interest in acting when Bhansali professed that he wanted to cast her in 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 likeable, 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 "likeable and believable". I Hate Luv Storys was Kapoor's first commercial success, earning ₹725.2 million (US$8.6 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.