Kriti Sanon (born 27 July 1990) is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Hindi films. She pursued an engineering degree from the Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, after which she briefly worked as a model. After making her debut in Telugu cinema with the psychological thriller 1: Nenokkadine (2014), Sanon won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for her performance in Sabbir Khan's action-comedy Heropanti (2014), which marked her first project in Hindi cinema.
Sanon has since starred in the commercially successful rom-com films Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017) and Luka Chuppi (2019), and her highest-grossing releases came with the comical action romance Dilwale (2015) and the comedy Housefull 4 (2019). She has also launched her own line of clothing and endorses several brands and products, and appeared in Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list of 2019.
Early life and background
Sanon was born on 27 July 1990 in New Delhi to Rahul Sanon, a chartered accountant and Geeta Sanon, a physics professor at the University of Delhi.[1][2][3][4] Her family is Punjabi.[5] She has a younger sister named Nupur Sanon. She attended Delhi Public School, RK Puram and later secured Bachelor of Technology degree in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida.[6][7]
Career
Sanon had her acting debut in 2014 with Sukumar's Telugu psychological thriller 1: Nenokkadine as Sameera, a journalist who is the love interest of Mahesh Babu's character.[8][9][10] The film received mixed reviews from critics.[11][12] A reviewer for The Times of India wrote that Sanon "looks pretty" and "acts well".[13] while a reviewer for Sify.com stated that she "looks gorgeous" and considered her performance to be "okay" for a newcomer.[14]
Later that year, Sanon entered Bollywood through Sabbir Khan's action romance Heropanti also featuring Tiger Shroff.[15][16][17] Despite a mixed reception, it emerged as a commercial success.[18] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama wrote that she "looks gorgeous and handles her part with certainty and confidence" and that she "has the trappings of a star",[19] whereas Rajeev Masand said she "looks lovely and makes an impression despite her harebrained role".[20] Conversely, Srijana Das of The Times of India criticised her emoting, calling it "more cheesy than sharp."[21] Sanon won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.[22]
Sanon's second Telugu film was Sudheer Varma's crime film Dohchay, co-starring Naga Chaitanya.[23] She then signed Rohit Shetty's action comedy Dilwale alongside Varun Dhawan, Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, which received mixed reviews from critics though it emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time, grossing more than ₹3.72 billion (US$52 million) worldwide.[24][25] Anupama Chopra disliked the film and wrote that Sanon and Dhawan "work as bait, meant to bring in the critical youth segment".[26]
In 2017, Sanon's first appearance was in Dinesh Vijan's directorial debut Raabta, in which she and Sushant Singh Rajput portrayed star-crossed lovers who are reincarnated.[27] In a scathing review, Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com labelled the film "embarrassingly daft" but took note of Sanon's "statuesque, spirited presence".[28] It was not financially successful.[29] Her next release, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi, was better received, and also featured Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkummar Rao, in which she played a headstrong woman in rural India who aspires to a better life.[30] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV noted that "the burden of making Bareilly Ki Barfi work rests upon Kriti Sanon and she doesn't put a foot wrong", but Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express thought that despite Sanon's effort, her performance lacked naturalism.[31][32] It earned over ₹548 million (US$7.7 million) against its ₹200 million (US$2.8 million) budget.[33]