Adah Sharma is an Indian actress who mainly appears in Hindi,Telugu and Tamil cinema. Sharma, after finishing her schooling, made her acting debut with a leading role in the 2008 Hindi horror film 1920, a box office success. Her portrayal of a possessed woman in the film was critically praised and earned her a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut nomination. After the release of her romantic comedy film Hasee Toh Phasee (2014), she ventured into the South Indian film industry, playing the leading lady in Telugu films such as S/O Satyamurthy (2015) and Kshanam (2016). In 2023, she starred in the film The Kerala Story.

Early life and education

She was born as Adah Sarma in Mumbai in a Tamil Brahmin (Palakkad Iyer) family. Her father S. L. Sharma (d. 2014), a Tamil, hailed from Madurai, Tamil Nadu and was a captain in the Indian Merchant Navy. Her mother Sheila Sharma, a Malayali and native of Nattupura, Palakkad, Kerala, is an Indian classical dancer and mallakhamba yoga practitioner.

Sharma was educated at Auxilium Convent High School, Bandra. When she was in tenth grade, she had decided that she wanted to become an actress. She wanted to drop out of school but her parents insisted that she should complete her schooling at least. After completing her twelfth grade, she stopped studying.

Sharma is a gymnast. She has been dancing since the age of three, and has completed her graduation in Kathak from the Natraj Gopi Krishna Kathak Dance Academy in Mumbai. She had learnt salsa for four months in the US, besides jazz and ballet, and has claimed to be "very good" at belly dancing. She is also a practitioner of Silambam, an Indian weapon-based martial art.

Sharma can speak Marathi and Hindi as she was born and brought up in Mumbai.

Career

In 2014, Sharma had two releases: Puri Jagannadh's romance Heart Attack opposite Nithiin, that marked her Telugu debut and a Hindi film Hasee Toh Phasee alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra, which released seven days later and featured her in a supporting role. She described her character in the former as "vulnerable, yet extremely sexy" and worked for two months on her Telugu diction. Sharma received positive remarks for her performance in Heart Attack, with The Times of India writing that she "looks like a natural actress and does a decent job" while 123telugu.com felt that she had made a "stunning debut". Both films were commercially successful, with Hasee To Phasee ending up as one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2014.

Her next two films, the Telugu family drama S/O Satyamurthy, in which she was cast opposite Allu Arjun and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and was directed by Trivikram Srinivas, and the Pavan Wadeyar's action thriller Rana Vikrama, alongside Puneeth Rajkumar and Anjali, her first Kannada project, released on consecutive days in April 2015. Both films were financial successes as well, with the former, having collected over ₹ 80 crore, emerging as one of the highest-grossing Telugu films of all time, in spite of receiving mixed reviews from critics. For her next film, she was paired opposite Sai Dharam Tej in Subramanyam for Sale, a Telugu romantic comedy . Directed by Harish Shankar, the film was proved to be a moderate success, and Sharma received good reviews for her performance. At the 5th edition of Indian Federation for Fashion Development's India Runway Week, Sharma dazzled in a beautiful lehenga as she walked the ramp for Shravan Kumar. The designer kept the collection region-specific and showcased the lesser known handlooms of the south.

Sharma had three releases in February 2016, two of which were in Telugu language. Her first film, the romantic comedy Garam was directed by Madan and she was cast as the love interest of the character played by Aadi. Her next film was the acclaimed thriller Kshanam where she played the central role of Swetha, who seeks help from her ex-boyfriend (Adivi Sesh). Her final release of the year was the romantic comedy Idhu Namma Aalu, her first Tamil film, in which she had a small role and also performed an item number on the song "King Kong", which topped the charts in South India and her dance moves as well as pairing with Silambarasan was praised. Her next release was the thriller Commando 2, a sequel to the 2013 film Commando: A One Man Army, where she plays the female lead role of an inspector opposite Vidyut Jammwal. Commercially, the film was an average-grosser. In 2020, she played the role of a transgender woman in a MX Player webseries titled Pati Patni Aur Panga.

In 2023, she starred in the lead role in The Kerala Story, in which she played the role of Shalini Unnikrishnan / Fathima Ba, who was radicalized and converted to Islam, eventually joining the terrorist organization ISIS. The performance of the actor in The Kerala Story has received positive feedback and the audience has appreciated her acting.

Filmography

Films
 

Web series

Short films

Music videos