Five years back, a small film called ‘Fugly’ arrived in theatres. The film did not have much of face value – it starred newcomers the most recognisable of which was boxer Vijender Singh. The only reason it got some visibility is because it was co-produced by Akshay Kumar who, along with Salman Khan, also made an appearance in a promotional video for the film. The film opened to poor reviews and tanked at the box-office and there was not much that was spoken about the four newcomers, Mohit Marwah, Kiara Advani, Vijender Singh and Arfi Lamba. Mohit pitched in with a nuance performance in ‘Raag Desh’ and dissapeared after that, Arfi was seen in a couple of small films and Vijender Singh got back to sports and is now involved in politics as well.
The one person from those four newcomers, who slowly and steadily managed to carve a place for herself in the Hindi film industry, is Kiara Advani. After the debacle of ‘Fugly’, she waited a while to pick the right script and chose ‘M.S Dhoni The Untold Story’ as her second film. Even with limited screen time, she managed to register her presence in the role of Sakshi Dhoni very well. She followed it up with Abbas-Mustan’s ‘Machine’, a film which did not do well but gave her a super-hit number in the form of “Cheez Badi”.
What followed next was a successful Telugu debut in ‘Bharat Ane Nenu’ and a critically acclaimed performance in the Karan Johar directed portion in the Netflix film ‘Lust Stories’. Though her second Telugu film ‘Vinaya Vidheya Rama’, co-starring, did not turn out to be the huge hit one would have expected it to be, a superhit song (“First Class”) in ‘Kalank’ gave her enough reasons to cheer about.
Now, the line-up of films she has for 2019-20 is the kind that would give her contemporaries sleepless nights. While ‘Kabir Singh’ releases on 21st June, she has Dharma Productions’ ‘Good News’ releasing by the end of the year. Next year, there is ‘Shershaah’, ‘Laxmmi Bomb’ and ‘Indoo Ki Jawaani’ slated to release. There are also talks of her starring in Dharmatic Entertainment’s (Dharma Productions’ digital wing) first original film ‘Guilty’ but there has been no official confirmation on it so far.
She has also signed up as the face of multiple brands, including the music apparel company Boat which she signed up for recently.
A underwhelming start is , by no means, is an indicator of your journey ahead in the Hindi film industry. Kiara Advani’s growth is a testimony to this. With multiple films and brands at her disposal, here is an actress who is seriously eyeing the top spot in Bollywood.
