Kangana Ranaut | The Queen of Bollywood

Bollywood Career

To find her passion, Kangana moved to Delhi and was selected by the “Elite Modelling Agency” as a model because of her looks. She did some modelling but was not passionate about that as she thought that it does not have scope for creativity. So, then she moved to acting and joined the “Asmita Theatre Group” and got trained by Arvind Gaur. She participated in various theatre performances and during one of the theatres, one male actor went missing so she played his role as well as her own role too. After getting great appreciation for this, she relocated to Mumbai to pursue a fruitful career in acting. So, this is how Kangana entered the Bollywood industry.

Debut in the Industry

When Kangana moved to Mumbai, she was finalised for the movie “I Love You Boss”. The following year, she was introduced to Mahesh Bhatt and auditioned for the lead role in “Gangster: A Love Story”. But Mahesh Bhatt finalised Chitrangada Singh instead considering the maturity level required by the role. Unfortunately, Chitrangada was not available for the shoot so he signed Kangana for the movie. And this is how “Gangster: A Love Story” became the debut movie of Kangana Ranaut. She portrayed the role of an alcoholic woman at the age of only seventeen with great maturity. She was highly praised for her performance in the movie and earned the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut.

Impressed by Kangana’s acting in her previous movie, she was cast for “Woh Lamhe...” and did a really good job. She received positive reviews but the movie failed to perform well at the box office. Then, in the following year, she was finalised for the musical thriller “Shakalaka Boom Boom” but that too turned out to be a flop. Later, she appeared in “Life in a… Metro” in a supporting role and was able to receive some appreciation from the audience for her performance. She also won the “Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance – Female” for portraying her character in the film.

The Fluctuations

In 2009, she appeared in the supernatural horror “Raaz: The Mystery Continues” along with Emraan Hashmi and Adhyayan Suman, which proved a financial success. Later in the same year, she was cast in “Vaada Raha” and the Telugu action “Ek Niranjan”, but neither of them was notable. In 2010, she got the chance to be featured in a big project “Kites” alongside Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori. But after the completion of the film, she got involved in a dispute about making her role smaller than she had signed for. In the same year, she appeared in another gangster movie “Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai” alongside Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi and Prachi Desai. This movie turned out to be one of the most successful releases of that year and Kangana was signed for the thriller “Knock Out” as well as for the comedy “No Problem”. But unfortunately, both these films failed to gain enough audience.

In 2011, she was cast as the lead actress opposite R. Madhavan in the romantic comedy film “Tanu Weds Manu” which was a big hit. She was finalised for this role to prove to everyone that she is a versatile actress and can play distinct types of roles other than those which she has performed earlier. Before this movie, she has been cast for only neurotic characters and “Tanu Weds Manu” has changed the entire perspective of the audience for Kangana. Later, she was cast in movies like “Game”, “Double Dhamaal”, “Rascals”, “Miley Naa Miley hum”, and “Tezz”. Among all these movies, only Double Dhamaal performed well at the box office and others were just failures.

Successful Ongoing

Kangana Ranaut then appeared in a brief role in the crime thriller, “Shootout at Wadala” opposite John Abraham in 2013. Later, in the same year, she gained a huge recognition for her amazing character in the science fiction, “Krrish 3”. For this movie, she was cast alongside Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra and Vivek Oberoi, and the film became one of the highest-grossing Bollywood movies of all time. She played her role so brilliantly that the audience was able to feel her pain through her expressions.

Another successful venture of Kangana Ranaut was “Queen” released in 2014 for which she earned huge recognition and praise. She was cast opposite Rajkummar Rao and the movie became an iconic role in Kangana’s life. The movie was a box office hit and brought several awards for Kangana in the Best Actress category. This amazing performance helped her to be featured in the black comedy “Revolver Rani” and the political drama “Ungli”.

Facing Expansion and Failures

After a small gap in her filming career, Kangana appeared as a 1940s heroine and stunt woman in “Rangoon” opposite Saif Ali Khan and Shahid Kapoor in 2017. She earned huge praise for her acting and the movie received positive reviews. In the same year, she was cast in “Simran” which is a crime comedy and she portrayed a Gujarati immigrant in the USA. Despite a great appreciation for Kangana’s performance in these two projects, the films failed at the box office.

In 2019, she portrayed the Indian freedom fighter Rani of Jhansi in the biopic “Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi”. Both, the movie and Kangana’s acting, were highly praised by the audience. Then later, the same year, she reunited with Rajkummar Rao for the black comedy titled “Judgementall Hai Kya”. She portrayed a mentally ill woman and was considered terrific in her role. In the next year, she appeared in a sports film, “Panga”, in which she portrayed a young mother who made her comeback in Kabaddi. In the same year, she also established her own production company, “Manikarnika Films”. The first film to be produced under this tag was “Thalaivii”.