Kangana Ranaut

Kangana Ranaut

Kangana Ranaut (pronounced [kəŋɡənaː raːɳoːʈʰ]; born 23 March 1987) is an Indian actress and filmmaker who works in Hindi films. The recipient of several awards, including three National Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards, she has featured six times in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list. In 2020, the Government of India awarded her with the Padma Shri.

Born in Bhambla, a small town in Himachal Pradesh, Ranaut initially aspired to become a doctor at the insistence of her parents. Determined to build her own career path, she relocated to Delhi at age sixteen, where she briefly became a model. After training under the theatre director Arvind Gaur, Ranaut made her feature film debut in the 2006 thriller Gangster, for which she was awarded the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She received praise for portraying emotionally intense characters in the dramas Woh Lamhe (2006), Life in a... Metro (2007) and Fashion (2008). For the last of these, she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Ranaut featured in the commercially successful films Raaz: The Mystery Continues (2009) and Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (2010), though she was criticised for being typecast in neurotic roles. A comic role opposite R. Madhavan in Tanu Weds Manu (2011) was well-received, though this was followed by a series of brief, glamorous roles in films that failed to propel her career forward. This changed in 2013 when she played a mutant in the science fiction film Krrish 3, one of the highest-grossing Indian films. Ranaut went on to win two consecutive National Film Awards for Best Actress for playing a naive woman in the comedy-drama Queen (2014) and a dual role in the comedy sequel Tanu Weds Manu: Returns (2015), which ranks as the biggest-earning female-led Hindi film. She then starred in a series of commercial failures, with the exemption of her co-directorial venture, the biopic Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019), in which she portrayed the titular warrior.

Ranaut is credited in the media as one of the most fashionable celebrities in the country, and she has launched her own clothing lines for the brand Vero Moda. Her reputation for expressing her honest opinions in public and her troubled personal and professional relationships have frequently sparked controversy.

Ranaut was born on 23 March 1987 at Bhambla (now Surajpur), a small town in the Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, into a Rajput family.[1][2][3][4] Her mother, Asha Ranaut, is a school teacher, and her father, Amardeep Ranaut, is a businessman.[5] She has an elder sister, Rangoli Chandel, who as of 2014 works as her manager and a younger brother, Akshat.[6][7] Her great-grandfather, Sarju Singh Ranaut, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly and her grandfather was an officer for the Indian Administrative Service.[8] She grew up in a joint family at their ancestral haveli (mansion) in Bhambla, and described her childhood as "simple and happy".[7][9]

According to Ranaut, she was "stubborn and rebellious" while growing up: "If my father would gift my brother a plastic gun and get a doll for me, I would not accept that. I questioned the discrimination."[10] She did not subscribe to the stereotypes that were expected of her and experimented with fashion from a young age, often pairing up accessories and clothes that would seem "bizarre" to her neighbours.[9][10] Ranaut was educated at the DAV School in Chandigarh, where she pursued science as her core subject, remarking that she was "very studious" and "always paranoid about [...] results".[11][12] She initially intended to become a doctor on the insistence of her parents.[13] However, a failed unit test in chemistry during her twelfth grade led Ranaut to reconsider her career prospects and despite preparing for the All India Pre Medical Test, she did not turn up for the exam.[13] Determined to find her "space and freedom", she relocated to Delhi at the age of sixteen.[6][14] Her decision not to pursue medicine led to constant feuding with her parents and her father refused to sponsor a pursuit he considered to be aimless.[10]

In Delhi, Ranaut was unsure which career to choose; the Elite Modelling Agency were impressed by her looks and suggested that she model for them.[5][14] She took on a few modelling assignments, but generally disliked the career as she found "no scope for creativity".[5][14] Ranaut decided to shift focus towards acting and joined the Asmita Theatre Group, where she trained under the theatre director Arvind Gaur.[15] She participated in Gaur's theatre workshop at the India Habitat Centre, acting in several of his plays, including the Girish Karnad-scripted Taledanda.[16] During a performance, when one of the male actors went missing, Ranaut played his part along with her original role of a woman.[17] A positive reaction from the audience prompted her to relocate to Mumbai to pursue a career in film and she enrolled herself for a four-month acting course in Asha Chandra's drama school.[18]

Ranaut struggled with her meager earnings during this period, eating only "bread and aachar (pickle)". Refusing her father's financial assistance led to a rift in their relationship which she later regretted.[8][10] Her relatives were unhappy with her decision to enter the film-making industry,[6] and they did not correspond with her for several years.[3][7][10] She reconciled with them after the release of Life in a... Metro in 2007