An award-winning and critically acclaimed actress, Alia Bhatt is often touted as one of Bollywood's most sought after actresses of recent times. She debuted as a child actress in 1999 in Tanuja Chandra's Sangharsh, and almost a decade after that she debuted as a lead actress in Karan Johar's Student of the Year alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan.
Apart from being a part of critically acclaimed films like Highway and Kapoor and Sons, Alia is also a gifted singer who has sung two of her films' songs. In addition to this, she is the ambassador of brands like Garnier, Maybelline, Coca-Cola and Caprese Bag and has launched her own clothing line in collaboration with the online fashion portal Jabong.
EARLY LIFE
Alia Bhatt is half Gujarati and half Kashmiri. She has a biological sister Shaheen Bhatt and two half-siblings, Pooja Bhatt and Rahul Bhatt. Music director Mukesh Bhatt is her paternal uncle and Emraan Hashmi and Mohit Suri are her paternal cousins. Born in Mumbai, she completed her schooling at the renowned school, Jamnabai Narsee.
Alia always wanted to become an actor and had no intentions of studying further after completing her schooling. The actress also took formal training in music at the AR Rahman's music school, Chennai. Despite being born to a celebrated Indian director, she wanted to begin her journey in Bollywood on the merit of her acting skills, and soon she made her debut with Karan Johar's production, Student of the Year. For her debut role, Bhatt had to lose 16 kgs in three months.
PERSONAL LIFE
Fondly called Aloo at home, Bhatt is very close to her elder sister Shaheen and mother, Soni Razdan, and considers them her biggest support system. She is reportedly dating her Kapoor and Sons co-star, Sidharth Malhotra.
DEBUT & INITIAL YEARS
Alia Bhatt portrayed the role of a stylish and sassy teenager, Shanaya Singhania, in her debut film, Student of the Year, for which she received great reviews. Touted as one of the most promising newcomers of tinsel town, Alia then went onto to star in Imtiaz Ali's film, Highway, opposite Randeep Hooda and won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the lonely teenage girl who develops Stockholm syndrome.
Her second major release of 2014 after Highway was a Dharma Productions film, 2 States, opposite Arjun Kapoor. Bhatt played the role of an opinionated Tamil girl, and her performance was well appreciated by the critics with Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama saying, "Alia Bhatt proves yet again that she doesn't need a dialogue to communicate; her eyes and expressions do the talking. Also, post Highway, Alia gets yet another complex character to prove her mettle and she does a super job of interpreting her character with aplomb."
Post this, Bhatt was again cast opposite Varun Dhawan in her next film Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, which went on to become a box office success. In 2015, she was seen with Shahid Kapoor in Shaandar, portraying the role of an insomniac. Shaandar was not received well at the box office. However, her first release of the year 2016, Kapoor and Sons, a family drama, was critically and commercially successful. Alia played the role of a lively young girl who falls in love with a boy hailing from a dysfunctional family. The film also starred Fawad Khan and Sidharth Malhotra.
BREAKTHROUGH & BEYOND
She next appeared along with Kareena Kapoor Khan, Shahid Kapoor and Diljit Dosanjh in Abhishek Chaubey's film Udta Punjab. Even after facing continuous issues with the censor board, the movie opened to extremely impressive reviews.
Her third release in 2016 was Gauri Shinde's directorial venture Dear Zindagi, where she portrayed Kaira, an aspiring cinematographer in search of a perfect life. Starring alongside Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt was highly praised for carrying the film on her shoulders, with her performance being appreciated by critics and audiences alike. Alia's 2017 release includes the romantic comedy Badrinath Ki Dulhania, the second film installment after Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. Directed by Shashank Khaitan, the movie co-stars Varun Dhawan in the lead role. The movie opened to positive reviews and went on to become the ninth highest-grossing movies of that year.
RECENT PROJECTS
Her other releases include Meghna Gulzar's period thriller Raazi opposite Vicky Kaushal, Zoya Akhtar's musical drama Gully Boy, which is based on the underground rap scene in Mumbai, where she is cast alongside Ranveer Singh, and in Ayan Mukerji's fantasy trilogy, the first part of which is titled Brahmastra and also features Amitabh Bachchan and Ranbir Kapoor.