Kangana Ranaut

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Kangana Ranaut

     Kangana 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. Her mother, Asha Ranaut, is a school teacher, and her father, Amardeep Ranaut, is a businessman. She has an elder sister, Rangoli, who as of 2014 works as her manager and a younger brother, Akshat. Her great-grandfather, Sarju Singh Ranaut, was a Member of the Legislative Assembly and her grandfather was an officer for the Indian Administrative Service. She grew up in a joint family at their ancestral haveli (mansion) in Bhambla, and described her childhood as "simple and happy".

     According to Kangana 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." 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. 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". She initially intended to become a doctor on the insistence of her parents. 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. Determined to find her "space and freedom", she relocated to Delhi at the age of sixteen. 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.

     In Delhi, Kangana Ranaut was unsure which career to choose; the Elite Modelling Agency were impressed by her looks and suggested that she model for them. She took on a few modelling assignments, but generally disliked the career as she found "no scope for creativity". Ranaut decided to shift focus towards acting and joined the Asmita Theatre Group, where she trained under the theatre director Arvind Gaur. She participated in Gaur's theatre workshop at the India Habitat

Centre, acting in several of his plays, including the Girish Karnad-scripted Taledanda. During a performance, when one of the male actors went missing, Kangana Ranaut played his part along with her original role of a woman. 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.

     Kangana 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. Her relatives were unhappy with her decision to enter the film-making industry, and they did not correspond with her for several years. She reconciled with them after the release of Life in a Metro in 2007.

Career:

     In 2004, the producers Ramesh Sharma and Pahlaj Nilani announced that Kangana Ranaut would make her film debut with the Deepak Shivdasani-directed I Love You Boss. The following year, an agent took her to the office of the producer Mahesh Bhatt, where she interacted with the director Anurag Basu and auditioned for the lead role in the romantic thriller Gangster. Bhatt felt that she was too young for the role and signed Chitrangada Singh instead. However, Singh was later unavailable to do the film and Ranaut was contracted as a replacement for Gangster, opting out of I Love You Boss. She was cast in the central role of Simran, an alcoholic woman caught in a romantic triangle between a notorious gangster (played by Shiney Ahuja) and a sympathetic friend (played by Emraan Hashmi). Ranaut was only seventeen while filming and said that she "had difficulty first in understanding and then unwinding from the character", describing her craft as "raw and immature". Released in 2006, Gangster emerged as a critical and commercial success and her performance was praised. Raja Sen of Rediff.com said that "Kangana is a remarkable find, the actress coming across with great conviction. Hers is the pivotal character and an extremely difficult role to essay, but she manages it well Kangana's nuances [of an alcoholic character] are disconcertingly realistic." She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut, along with various other debut awards.

     Kangana Ranaut's next role was in the Mohit Suri-directed drama Woh Lamhe (2006), a semi-biographical film based on the schizophrenic actress Parveen Babi and her relationship with the director Mahesh Bhatt. She said that portraying Babi had left her emotionally drained, as she had begun to "feel her desolation and loneliness." Film critic Subhash K. Jha wrote that Ranaut "is the first female performer of Bollywood since Smita and Shabana who isn't scared to strip her soul naked for the camera", adding that she is a "hugely expressive actress with a phenomenal ability to convey torment, hurt and incredulity through the eyes". Despite positive reviews, the film underperformed at the box office.

     The following year, Kangana Ranaut portrayed an aspiring musician in Suneel Darshan's musical thriller Shakalaka Boom Boom, alongside Bobby Deol, Upen Patel and Celina Jaitly. The film's production was marred by a dispute between Ranaut and Darshan; she objected to her voice being dubbed by another artist, but he insisted that he needed a particular "twang and accent" for her character. India Today described the film as an "amateur mess" and the film proved to be a box office flop. She next reunited with Anurag Basu for the ensemble drama Life in a Metro, playing the supporting role of Neha, a shrewd socialite engaged in an affair with her married boss (played by Kay Kay Menon). Despite a poor initial run at the box office, the film emerged as a profitable venture. Khalid Mohamed of Hindustan Times was critical of the film, noting its lack of originality and realism. In a more positive review, Raja Sen wrote that Ranaut "is refreshing and manages to herd her emotions well, playing a complex role but hardly ever overreaching", but criticised her delivery of English lines. For her role, Ranaut was awarded the Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance – Female.

     Kangana Ranaut next portrayed a village girl in Dhaam Dhoom (2008), a Tamil romantic thriller, opposite Jayam Ravi. Production on the film was temporarily halted when the director, Jeeva, died of cardiac arrest and the film was completed by the crew members. A review carried by Post wrote that Ranaut had "little scope" in a role that did not suit her. India Today described her next film, the Madhur Bhandarkar-directed drama Fashion (2008), as a "landmark" in her career. Set against the backdrop of the Indian fashion industry, the film co-starred Priyanka Chopra and Mugdha Godse and featured Ranaut as Shonali Gujral, a substance abusing supermodel struggling to cope with her foundering career. Because the media speculated that her role was based on the former model Geetanjali Nagpal (which both Ranaut and Bhandarkar denied), the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), ordered a stay on the film's release, approving it only after a script narration. With a worldwide revenue of 600 million Indian rupees, approximately US$10 million, Fashion emerged

as a commercial success, and was listed by Subhash K. Jha as one of the best films of the decade with women protagonists. Ranaut's performance drew unanimous critical acclaim. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama praised her confident portrayal of the character and believed that she was the real star of the film, and Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India added that she "does an exquisite metamorphosis from a wispy, high-strung, nervous child-woman to a stunning ramp diva." Her portrayal earned Ranaut several awards, including the National Film Award and Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Personal life:

     Kangana Ranaut has stated that her initial years in the film industry were marred with difficulties as she was unprepared to be an actress. She was conscious of her poor command of the English language and struggled to "fit in". In a 2013 interview with Daily News and Analysis, Ranaut recollected: "People in the industry treated me like I didn't deserve to be spoken to and I was some unwanted object. I couldn't speak English fluently and people made fun of me for that. So dealing with rejection became a part of life. All that has taken a toll, I guess. I find it hard to deal with praise. Today, when people say that I have made it and made it on my own, I feel like locking up myself somewhere It scares me."

     During the struggle, Kangana Ranaut found support in the actor Aditya Pancholi and his wife Zarina Wahab and considered them her "family away from home". She became embroiled in a well publicised scandal when the media speculated on the nature of her relationship with Pancholi. She declined to speak about it openly, although she made several public appearances with him. In 2007 it was reported that Ranaut had filed a police complaint against Pancholi for physically assaulting her under the influence of alcohol. The following year Pancholi confirmed the affair in an interview, saying that he had been cohabiting with Ranaut in the past and accused her of owing him ?2.5 million (US$38,000). In response, Ranaut's spokesperson said that "after physically assaulting her in the middle of a road, he has no right to expect anything from her", adding that she had "already given ?5 million (US$75,000) to [him] as a goodwill gesture". Ranaut later said that the incident had left her "physically and mentally" damaged.

     While filming Raaz: The Mystery Continues in 2008, Ranaut began a romantic relationship with co-star Adhyayan Suman. On Suman's insistence that he focus on his professional career, the couple separated the following year. From 2010 to 2012, Ranaut was involved in a long-distance romance with Nicholas Lafferty, an English doctor; she described the relationship as "the most normal" she ever had, but the couple split amicably as she was not ready for marriage. She has since maintained that she will never get married, and has expressed a desire to not be bound by a relationship.

     Kangana Ranaut lives in Mumbai with her sister Rangoli, who was the victim of an acid attack in 2006. She makes yearly visits to her hometown of Bhambla. A practicing Hindu, Ranaut follows the teachings of the spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda and considers meditation to be "the highest form of worshipping God". She practices vegetarianism and was listed as "India's hottest vegetarian" in a poll conducted by PETA in 2013. Since 2009 Kangana Ranaut has been studying the dance form of kathak from the Nateshwar Nritya Kala Mandir. She has said that the technical process of filmmaking

is of tremendous interest to her, and to better her understanding of it Ranaut enrolled in a two-month screenplay writing course at the New York Film Academy in 2014. In an interview with Filmfare she said that despite her stardom, she wants to lead a normal life: "I don't want to lose my rights as a common person to learn and grow".

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