Sara Ali Khan

Sara Ali Khan

Sara Ali Khan (pronounced [saːɾaː əˈli ˈxaːn]; born 12 August 1995) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. A member of the Pataudi family, she is the daughter of actors Amrita Singh and Saif Ali Khan and the paternal granddaughter of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore.

After graduating from Columbia University, Khan ventured into acting by playing the leading lady in the 2018 films Kedarnath and Simmba. Both films were commercially successful and the former earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list of 2019.

Early life and background

Sara Ali Khan was born on 12 August 1995 in Mumbai to Saif Ali Khan, son of Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi and Sharmila Tagore, and Amrita Singh; both actors of the Hindi film industry.[3][4] A member of the Pataudi family,[5] she is also the maternal granddaughter of Rukhsana Sultana and Shivinder Singh Virk.[6] She has a younger brother, Ibrahim Ali Khan.[7] Her half-brother, Taimur Ali Khan, is Saif's son from his second marriage to Kareena Kapoor.[8] Khan is of predominantly Bengali and Pathan descent on her father's side, and of Punjabi descent on her mother's side.[9][10]

When Khan was a four-year-old, she acted in an advertisement.[11] According to Saif, the actress Aishwarya Rai proved to be her inspiration for pursuing a career in film after she saw her perform on stage at Chicago.[11][12] In 2004, when Khan was nine, her parents divorced, and Singh was granted legal guardianship of her children.[13] Saif was initially not allowed to see her or her brother;[13] they have since reconciled, and, according to Saif, "are more like friends [than father and daughter]".[14] Khan also shares a healthy relationship with Kapoor, her step-mother; she stated in 2018, "I would like to imbibe her professionalism in me".[15]

As a teenager, Khan struggled with her weight, and had to undergo daily workouts under a strict schedule to get fit.[16] She was also diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, which she ascribes as a cause for her weight gain.[17] Khan studied history and political science at Columbia University in New York.[18][19][20] In 2016, she completed her graduation early, within three years, and took off the remaining one-and-a-half years for weight training, following which she returned to India.[20][21]

Career

Khan's debut came in 2018 with Abhishek Kapoor's romantic disaster film Kedarnath, in which she played a Hindu girl who falls in love with a Muslim porter, played by Sushant Singh Rajput.[22] In preparation for her role, Khan improved her knowledge of Hindi vocabulary with help from Rajput.[23] During filming, a dispute between Kapoor and KriArj Entertainment, the producers, led to the latter losing the film's rights to RSVP Movies, who produced it alongside Kapoor.[24][22] A few weeks before release, priests of Kedarnath Temple demanded the film's boycott as they believed it promoted Love Jihad, and a Bharatiya Janata Party leader also urged for a ban.[25][26] As a result, the film was banned in the state of Uttarakhand.[27] Kedarnath received mixed reviews with praise directed to Khan's performance.[28] Kunal Guha of Mumbai Mirror found it to be a rehash of 1980s Hindi films but appreciated Khan's act: "When her Mukku is angry, hopeful, desperate or coltish, she often conveys it through her eyes alone — giving us a taste of the diverse faces she can throw on."[29] Meena Iyer of Daily News and Analysis similarly labelled her "spectacular".[30] Kedarnath emerged as a commercial success.[31][32] Khan was awarded with the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut and the IIFA Award for Star Debut of the Year – Female.[33][34]

A few weeks after the release of Kedarnath, Khan starred in Rohit Shetty's action film Simmba, alongside Ranveer Singh, which was loosely based on the Telugu-language film Temper (2015).[35] She began work on it when filming of Kedarnath was temporarily suspended.[36][37] This led to Abhishek Kapoor suing Khan; they later settled out of court when she agreed to split her time between both films.[38][39] Reviewing the film for The Times of India, Ronak Kotecha opined that Khan had "precious little to do besides looking breathtakingly beautiful" and disliked the chemistry between her and Singh.[40] With worldwide earnings of ₹4 billion (US$56 million), Simmba emerged as the third highest-grossing Hindi film of 2018.[41]

In Imtiaz Ali's romantic drama Love Aaj Kal (2020), a spiritual successor to Ali's 2009 film of the same name, Khan starred as a young woman with a troubled past, opposite Kartik Aaryan.[42][43] In a negative review of the film, Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in bemoaned that Khan "simply doesn’t have the experience or the expertise" to play a complex character, adding that "having a camera shoved into her young face only enlarges her shortcomings".[44] It emerged as a box office bomb.[45]

Khan will next star opposite Varun Dhawan in the comedy film Coolie No. 1, an adaptation of David Dhawan's 1995 film of the same name.[46][47] She has also committed to feature in Aanand L. Rai's film Atrangi Re, co-starring Akshay Kumar and Dhanush.[48]

In the media

In 2019, Khan appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list, ranking 66th with an estimated annual income of ₹57.5 million (US$810,000).[49] She is a celebrity endorser for several brands and products, including Fanta, Puma, and Veet.