Kiara Advani

Alia Advani (born 31 July 1991), known professionally as Kiara Advani, is an Indian actress who works in Hindi and Telugu language films.

Advani was born 31 July 1991, to Jagdeep Advani, a Sindhi Hindu businessman and Genevieve Jaffrey, a teacher whose father was originally from Lucknow and whose mother was of Scottish, Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish ancestry.

Her younger brother, Mishaal, is a musician.

She is related to several celebrities through her maternal family.

Actors Ashok Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey are her step-great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively.

Advani was educated at Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai.

She then attended Jai Hind College, Mumbai where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mass communications.

Her choice of name was inspired by Priyanka Chopra's character Kiara in the film Anjaana Anjaani (2010).

She stated that it was Salman Khan's suggestion to change her name, as Alia Bhatt was already an established actress.

After making her acting debut in the comedy film Fugly (2014), she played MS Dhoni's wife in the sports biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016).

Born as Alia Advani, she changed her first name to Kiara prior to the release of her first film, Fugly, in 2014.

Advani began her acting career with the Hindi ensemble comedy film Fugly (2014).

Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama wrote, "Kiara Advani catches you completely unaware" and has the "combination of looks and talent".

Mehul S Thakkar of Deccan Chronicle found her "very striking" and said that she "shows a lot of promise".

Fugly underperformed at the box office.

Two years later, Advani appeared in the sports drama M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), a biopic of cricketer MS Dhoni who served as the former captain of Indian cricket team.

She had a supporting role opposite Sushant Singh Rajput (who essayed Dhoni), as the real-life character of his wife, hotel manager Sakshi Rawat.

M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story was a major commercial success with global revenues of over inr 2160000000.

Advani then starred in Abbas–Mustan's action thriller Machine (2017).

It failed at the box office.

She gained appreciation for playing a sexually unsatisfied wife in the Netflix anthology film Lust Stories (2018) and played the leading lady in the political thriller Bharat Ane Nenu (2018).

She next collaborated with filmmaker Karan Johar, for their first of many films, in the Netflix anthological film Lust Stories (2018), where she starred opposite Vicky Kaushal as his sexually dissatisfied wife.

Writing for NDTV, Raja Sen found her to be "positively lovely" in it.

Advani expanded to Telugu cinema in 2018, appearing with Mahesh Babu in the action film Bharat Ane Nenu from Koratala Siva, about a student who unexpectedly becomes the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh.

Janani K of India Today opined that she "shines in her brief role" but added that her character was "more of an eye-candy who doesn't add any purpose to the story".

The film grossed inr 2250000000 worldwide, making it one of Telugu cinema's highest grossers.

She, however, failed to replicate this success with her second Telugu film, Vinaya Vidheya Rama, co-starring Ram Charan.

In a scathing review for The Hindu, Sangeetha Devi Dundoo wrote, "It isn't Kiara Advani's fault that she looks lost in the melee."

In the same year, she had a guest appearance in Abhishek Varman's ensemble period film Kalank, produced by Johar.

Advani received wider attention for starring in the romantic drama Kabir Singh and the comedy drama Good Newwz, two of the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2019.

She won the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress for the latter.

She had further commercial success in the 2022 films Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and Jugjugg Jeeyo.

Her performances as Vikram Batra's girlfriend in the war film Shershaah (2021) and a troubled married woman in the romantic drama Satyaprem Ki Katha (2023) earned her nominations for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

In addition to acting, she serves as the ambassador of several brands and products.

Advani is married to actor Sidharth Malhotra.

Advani received wider attention later in 2019 for Sandeep Reddy Vanga's romantic drama Kabir Singh, starring Shahid Kapoor.

The film had a worldwide gross of over inr 3780000000 becoming her highest-grossing release, but critics panned it due to its depiction of misogyny and toxic masculinity.

Rajeev Masand bemoaned that her passive character "offers the actress little to work with".

She then starred in the comedy Good Newwz alongside Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh, about two couples tryst with in vitro fertilization.

Namrata Joshi opined, "Dosanjh and Advani are all about the amplification of the boisterous, kitschy Punjabi stereotype but they play it with an infectious cheer."