Shahid Kapoor is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi films. Initially recognised for portraying romantic roles, he has since taken on parts in action films and thrillers, and is the recipient of several awards, including three Filmfare Awards.

The son of actors Pankaj Kapur and Neelima Azeem, Kapoor trained as a dancer at Shiamak Davar's academy. He appeared as a background dancer in a few films of the 1990s, and was later featured in music videos and television commercials. He made his film debut in 2003 with a leading role in the romantic comedy Ishq Vishk, a sleeper hit for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. He followed it with roles in several commercial failures before starring in Sooraj Barjatya's top-grossing family drama Vivah (2006).

Kapoor earned praise for playing a troubled businessman in Imtiaz Ali's romantic comedy Jab We Met (2007) and twin brothers in Vishal Bhardwaj's action film Kaminey (2009). After another series of unsuccessful films, he starred in the action film R... Rajkumar (2013). Further acclaim came for portraying the Hamlet character in Bhardwaj's tragedy Haider (2014) and a drug abusing singer in the crime drama Udta Punjab (2016). For the former, he won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor and for the latter, he won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Kapoor's highest-grossing releases came with the period drama Padmaavat (2018) and the romantic drama Kabir Singh (2019). He has since starred in the Amazon Prime Video crime drama series Farzi (2023).

In addition to acting, Kapoor supports charities, hosts award ceremonies, and has featured as a talent judge on the dance reality show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa Reloaded (2015). He is married to Mira Rajput, with whom he has two children.

Early Life

Shahid Kapoor was born in New Delhi on 25 February 1981 to actor Pankaj Kapur and actor-dancer Neelima Azeem. His parents divorced when he was three years old; his father shifted to Mumbai (and married the actress Supriya Pathak) and Kapoor continued living in Delhi with his mother and maternal grandparents. His grandparents were journalists for the Russian magazine Sputnik, and Kapoor was particularly fond of his grandfather: “He would walk me to school every single day. He would talk to me about dad, with whom he shared a great relationship, and read out his letters to me.” His father, who was then a struggling actor in Mumbai, would visit Kapoor only once a year on his birthday. When Kapoor was 10, his mother, who was working as a dancer, moved to Mumbai to work as an actress.

In Mumbai, Azeem went on to marry the actor Rajesh Khattar. Kapoor continued living with his mother and Khattar, until they separated in 2001. Kapoor continues to use the last name Khattar on his passport. He has a maternal half-brother, Ishaan, from his mother's marriage to Khattar. From his father's marriage to Pathak, he has two paternal half-siblings, Sanah and Ruhaan. Kapoor was educated at the Gyan Bharati School in Delhi and Rajhans Vidyalaya in Mumbai. He later attended Mumbai's Mithibai College for three years.

Kapoor was interested in dance from an early age, and at the age of 15, he joined Shiamak Davar's dance institute. As a student there, Kapoor appeared as a background dancer in the films Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) and Taal (1999), in which Davar served as choreographer. During a stage show at the institute, Kapoor performed in the songs "Vogue" and "GoldenEye" to a positive response from the audience; he described the experience as the first time that he "felt like a star". He later became an instructor at the institute. During this time, Kapoor accompanied a friend to an audition for a Pepsi commercial featuring the stars Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukerji, but wound up with the part himself. He appeared in television commercials for the brands Kit Kat and Close-Up, among others, and featured in music videos for several performers, including the band Aryans and the singer Kumar Sanu. Kapoor also took on the job of an assistant director to his father on the 1998 television series Mohandas B.A.L.L.B.

Career

Early work and breakthrough (2003-2006)

Having noticed Kapoor in the Aryans' music video "Aankhon Mein", the producer Ramesh Taurani was keen to cast him in a film. However, upon meeting him, Taurani thought Kapoor, who was 20 years old at the time, to be too young and underweight to become an actor, and encouraged him to wait for a few years. Kapoor, meanwhile, turned down a lead role in N. Chandra's sex comedy Style in hopes of working with Taurani. Taurani found a suitable project for Kapoor in the teenage romance Ishq Vishk (2003), which Ken Ghosh was directing for his company. Kapoor, who trained extensively for a bulkier physical build, was eventually hired. Before beginning work on the film, he attended acting workshops with Naseeruddin Shah and Satyadev Dubey.

Ishq Vishk tells the story of Rajiv Mathur (Kapoor), a high-school student who engages in a romantic affair with two classmates of contrasting personalities (played by Amrita Rao and Shenaz Treasurywala). Kapoor was attracted to the idea of playing an unlikable lead since it was a departure from the traditional portrayal of teenage heroes in Indian films. Writing for The Hindu, the critic Ziya Us Salam did not find him to be "hero material", adding that “boyhood seems to have overstayed on his face – but he is not necessarily bad in the acting department.” The film, however, proved to be a sleeper hit at the box office and won Kapoor the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut.

Following his debut, Kapoor reunited with Ghosh in a film he considered to be drastically different from Ishq Vishk. The thriller Fida (2004) featured him as a love-struck student who is manipulated by a woman (Kareena Kapoor) and her lover (Fardeen Khan) to rob a bank. Despite criticising the film, Rama Sharma of The Tribune wrote that Kapoor “shines in his role. He looks fresh. As an impulsive emotional and innocent guy, who is sucked into crime because of these very qualities, he manages to evoke your sympathies.” Later that year, Kapoor appeared in the romantic comedy Dil Maange More in which he was paired opposite three women: Soha Ali Khan, Tulip Joshi, and Ayesha Takia. Patcy N of Rediff.com praised his dancing skills but was wary of his imitation of Shah Rukh Khan's acting style. Both his 2004 releases were commercially unsuccessful.

The series of poorly received films continued in 2005, when all three of Kapoor's films failed at the box office. His first two releases that year were the comedies Deewane Huye Paagal and Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi!, both of which were largely panned. The former was plagiarised from the Hollywood film There's Something About Mary in which Kapoor played one of Rimi Sen's love interests; the critic Khalid Mohamed found Kapoor to be "the only likeable element in this travesty" but Namrata Joshi of Outlook labelled him "colourless" and criticised his pairing with Sen. His final role was that of a righteous teenager drawn towards a life of indulgence in John Matthew Matthan's drama Shikhar, co-starring Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu and Amrita Rao. The critic Sukanya Verma found Kapoor to be miscast as a village boy in the film, but noted that he was "never short of spontaneity and youthful exuberance".

In 2006, Kapoor played opposite Kareena Kapoor in two films—the thriller 36 China Town and the comedy Chup Chup Ke. In 36 China Town, a murder mystery from the director duo Abbas–Mustan, Kapoor starred as one of the seven suspects in the murder of an heiress, and in the Priyadarshan-directed Chup Chup Ke, he played a depressed man who pretends to be deaf and mute. The former was his first commercial success since Ishq Vishk. Greater success came to Kapoor later that year when he starred alongside Amrita Rao in Sooraj Barjatya's romantic drama Vivah, a film depicting an arranged marriage. Made on a shoestring budget of ₹100 million (US$1.3 million), the film earned over ₹530 million (US$6.6 million) worldwide, and proved to be Kapoor's highest-grossing film to that point. Reviews of the film, however, were negative; Raja Sen termed the film a "nightmare" and wrote that Kapoor "isn't offensively bad, doesn't ham it up like crazy, or speak in a weird accent. Having said that, he isn't an actor at all, standing around working on his boyish grin, simply chewing up the scenery. No screen presence at all."

Jab We Met, Kaminey, and commercial fluctuations (2007-2013)

Kapoor found no success in his first release of 2007—the ensemble comedy Fool & Final. However, his second release that year, the Imtiaz Ali-directed romantic comedy Jab We Met proved to be one of the top-grossing films of the year. The film tells the story of a troubled businessman (Kapoor) whose life undergoes a series of changes after he encounters a loquacious girl (Kareena Kapoor) on a train ride. Ali thought that Kapoor's previous roles failed to justify his acting potential, and thus approached him to portray a more complex character. The BBC noted on how "endearing" he was in the film and Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN wrote that he left an "indelible impression with a performance that is understated and mature" in a film he thought primarily belonged to Kareena Kapoor. For his performance, Kapoor received his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.

After featuring opposite Vidya Balan in the romantic comedy Kismat Konnection (2008), Kapoor played twin brothers, one with a lisp and the other with a stutter, in Vishal Bhardwaj's critically acclaimed action film Kaminey (2009). In preparation, Kapoor met speech specialists and researched on the medical and mental aspects of the two conditions. To create a lean physique for one of the brothers, a look he considered to be "radically different" from his personal appearance, Kapoor practised functional training and followed a rigorous diet. Writing for Variety, critic Joe Leydon reviewed that Kapoor “impressively displays sufficiently variegated degrees of emotional intensity to sustain the illusion of two distinct characters. Just as important, he provides each sibling an appropriately elevated hunkiness quotient.” Rediff.com listed Kapoor's performance as the best by a Bollywood actor in 2009 and he received a second Best Actor nomination at Filmfare. Kaminey earned over ₹700 million (US$8.8 million) worldwide. Kapoor's final release of 2009 was as a cricketer in Dil Bole Hadippa!, a romantic comedy co-starring Rani Mukerji. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, but was a financial failure.

In 2010, Kapoor reteamed with Ken Ghosh in Chance Pe Dance, a comedy-drama about a struggling actor, in which Kapoor's performance was described as "uneven" by Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis.[42] He had a supporting role in Paathshaala, a drama about the education system in India, starring Nana Patekar, following which he starred in Yash Raj Films' Badmaash Company, a comedy-drama about a group of overambitious youngsters who become con men. Rachel Saltz of The New York Times praised Kapoor's look in the film, though Tushar Joshi of Mid-Day thought that he was miscast. Kapoor's fourth and final release that year was Satish Kaushik's romantic comedy Milenge Milenge, which marked his fourth collaboration with Kareena Kapoor. Plagiarised from the Hollywood film Serendipity, the production was delayed since 2005. During its production in December 2004 at Phuket, Kapoor requested a delay in filming to attend the premiere of Dil Maange More. The delay may have saved the lives of the crew, since the hotel booked for them was destroyed during the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. With the exception of Badmaash Company, none of these films performed well commercially.

Kapoor next appeared in his father's directorial Mausam (2011); co-starring Sonam Kapoor, the star-crossed romance set over a decade, took two years to complete. Considering the film to be his "dream project", Kapoor did not take on additional work while filming for it. For his role as an unambitious village boy who becomes an air force pilot, Kapoor trained to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Rajeev Masand reviewed that "while he doesn't quite cut it as a convincing IAF pilot, Shahid Kapoor is terrific as the small-town brat". The film was a box office flop and Kapoor was later regretful for spending so much time on the project.

The following year, Kapoor took on another romantic role in Kunal Kohli's Teri Meri Kahaani (2012), co-starring Priyanka Chopra. It tells the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers who are reincarnated in three different eras. Filmfare reviewed that "Shahid and Priyanka give it their best shot, but their charm doesn't make up for the absence of a genuine kahani [story]". The comedy Phata Poster Nikhla Hero from director Rajkumar Santoshi was Kapoor's first release of 2013. His role was that of Vishwas Rao, a struggling actor who masquerades as a policeman. Critical reviews on the film were negative, though Kapoor's performance was praised. As with his last few releases, the film earned little at the box office leading trade analysts to question his commercial appeal. This changed later that year, when he starred in Prabhu Deva's action film R... Rajkumar; despite a negative critical reception, the film earned over ₹995 million (US$12 million) worldwide, becoming Kapoor's highest-grossing release to that point. In a scathing review, Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV called the film a "massive mess" and wrote that Kapoor "ends up looking more moronic than macho" in it. Kapoor suffered from burn injuries on his back and hands while filming a stunt sequence in R... Rajkumar.

2020-present

After a three-year absence from the screen, Kapoor starred in the sports drama Jersey (2022), a remake of the Telugu film of the same name, about a former cricketer who wants to make a comeback in his late 30s. While filming for a cricket sequence, he suffered an injury to his forehead that needed 13 stitches. Production and release of the film was delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was praised by Archika Khurana of The Times of India for his credibility as a cricketer. It did not perform well at the box office.

Kapoor was first offered a starring role in Farzi, a crime drama film from the filmmaking duo Raj & DK, in 2014. By the end of the decade, it was expanded into a streaming series (a format Kapoor was keen to explore), and was released on Amazon Prime Video in 2023.[105][106] He played Sunny, a disillusioned artist who decides to make counterfeit money. Scroll.in's Nandini Ramnath found Kapoor to be in "fine form despite looking too old for the part", adding that he "reins in his tendency for self-pitying bombast to deliver a performance that complements Sunny’s vanity for equating counterfeiting with art".[107] It emerged as the most-watched Indian streaming series.[108]

Kapoor will next star in Ali Abbas Zafar's action film Bloody Daddy, a remake of the French film Sleepless Night (2011), and in an as-yet untitled romantic comedy opposite Kriti Sanon.

Public image

The journalist Dave Besseling of GQ, in 2014, described Kapoor as "friendly, chirpy, affable frat-boy type. Someone you'd want to play video games with on a Sunday, but keep the hell away from your sister". However, certain media publications have labelled Kapoor a recluse and described him as arrogant and temperamental. Vickey Lalwani of Mumbai Mirror wrote in 2012 that this perceived media image hindered certain filmmakers from approaching him for roles. Addressing this image, Kapoor remarked, “I just don't socialise much, I don't party too much, I don't know what to say to the media if I'm not talking about a film that I am doing, so yeah, maybe I am perceived as a snob.”

Analysing his career, the entertainment portal Bollywood Hungama published that his "boy next door persona" was initially perceived by critics as a weakness, but credited him for turning it into a trademark. Jitesh Pillai of Filmfare wrote that after gaining recognition in urban romantic roles, Kapoor defied typecasting by taking on diverse parts in crime dramas and action films. He noted that Kapoor's refusal to be "slotted under any kind of tag" led to a fluctuating career trajectory. Following the success of Jab We Met (2007) and Kaminey (2009), Kapoor's career went through a decline; he described the phase as a series of "wrong choices" and said that taking on a challenging role in Haider (2014) helped him reinvent himself. Sonal Gera of The Indian Express opined that the film established him in Bollywood. In her book Power of a Common Man, the author Koral Dasgupta writes that Kapoor does not "[conform] to any fixed rules of the trade", and notes that despite having a lopsided success ratio at the box office, he remains popular among the audiences.

A popular celebrity, Kapoor has a significant following on Twitter and Instagram. Considered one of the most attractive male celebrities in India, he regularly features in the British magazine Eastern Eye's listing of the "50 Sexiest Asian Men in the World". In 2012 and 2013 he was ranked fourth, and in 2017 he topped the list. He was ranked fifth on The Times of India's list of the 50 most-desirable men in 2014; he was placed among the top 10 in 2012, 2013 and 2015. Kapoor was named the sexiest vegetarian man of India and Asia-Pacific in 2009 and 2011, respectively, by PETA. From 2012–15, 2017, and 2019, he featured among the top 50 in the Indian edition of the Forbes' "Celebrity 100," a list based on the income and popularity of India's celebrities, peaking at the 15th position in 2015. Kapoor is the celebrity ambassador for several brands and products, including Samsung, Elf Aquitaine and Colgate. In 2019, his wax figure was unveiled at Madame Tussauds Singapore.

Accolads

Kapoor has been the recipient of three Filmfare Awards: Best Male Debut for Ishq Vishk (2003), Best Actor for Haider (2014), and Critics Award for Best Actor for Udta Punjab (2016). He has received four more Best Actor nominations at the ceremony for Jab We Met (2007), Kaminey (2009), Udta Punjab (2016), and Kabir Singh (2019).