Background and career
Rani Mukerji (Hindustani pronunciation: [raːni mʊkʰərdʒi]; born 21 March 1978) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. One of the highest-paid actresses of the 2000s, She is the recipient of multiple accolades, including a National Film Award and eight Filmfare Awards. Born into the Mukherjee-Samarth family, Mukerji graduated with a Home Science degree in SNDT Women's University. She began acting as a teenager by starring in her father Ram Mukherjee's Bengali-language film Biyer Phool and in the social drama Raja Ki Aayegi Baaraat (both 1996). Mukerji had her first commercial success with the action film Ghulam and breakthrough with the romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (both 1998). Following a brief setback, the year 2002 marked a turning point for her when she was cast by Yash Raj Films as the star of the drama Saathiya. Mukerji established herself by starring in several commercially successful romantic films, including Chalte Chalte (2003), Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara (both 2004), Bunty Aur Babli (2005), and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006). She also gained praise for playing an abused wife in the political drama Yuva (2004) and a deaf and blind woman in the drama Black (2005). Mukerji's collaborations with Yash Raj Films from 2007 and 2010 produced several unsuccessful films and led critics to bemoan her choice of roles. This changed when she played a headstrong journalist in the biographical thriller No One Killed Jessica (2011). Further success came with the thrillers Talaash (2012), Mardaani (2014), Mardaani 2 (2019) and Mardaani 3 (2026), the social message-drama Hichki (2018), which emerged as Mukerji's highest-grossing release, and the drama Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway (2023), which earned her the National Film Award for Best Actress. Mukerji is involved with humanitarian causes and is vocal about issues faced by women and children. She has participated in concert tours and stage shows, and featured as a talent judge for the 2009 reality show Dance Premier League. Mukerji is married to filmmaker Aditya Chopra, with whom she has a daughter.
Mukerji was born in Bombay (present-day Mumbai) on 21 March 1978 into the Mukherjee-Samarth family. Her father, Ram Mukherjee, was a former film director and one of the founders of Filmalaya Studios. Her mother, Krishna Mukherjee, was a former playback singer. Her elder brother, Raja Mukherjee, is a film producer and director. Her maternal aunt, Debashree Roy, is a Bengali film actress and her paternal second cousin, Kajol, is a Hindi film actress and her contemporary. Another paternal second cousin, Ayan Mukerji, is a scriptwriter and film director. Despite her parents and many of her relatives being members of the Indian film industry, Mukerji was uninterested in pursuing a career in film. She said, "There were already too many actresses at home and I wanted to be someone different". Mukerji received her education at Maneckji Cooper High School in Juhu and graduated with a degree in Home Science from SNDT Women's University. She is a trained Odissi dancer and began learning the dance form while in the tenth grade. As part of an annual tradition, the Mukherjee family celebrates the festival of Durga Puja in the suburban neighbourhood of Santacruz every year. Mukerji, a practising Hindu, takes part in the festivities with her entire family. In 1994, director Salim Khan approached Mukerji to play the lead female role in his directorial, Aa Gale Lag Jaa. Her father disapproved of a full-time career in film at such a young age, so she rejected the offer. At age 18, following her mother's suggestion that she pursue acting on an experimental basis, Mukerji accepted leading roles in the social drama Raja Ki Aayegi Baaraat, Khan's second offer to her, and her father's Bengali film Biyer Phool, both of which were released on 18 October 1996. Before she began work on Raja Ki Aayegi Baaraat, Mukerji trained at Roshan Taneja's acting institute. She portrayed a rape victim who is forced to marry her rapist. Although the film was a commercial failure, Mukerji's performance earned her a special recognition trophy at the annual Screen Awards ceremony. Following the film's poor showing at the box office, Mukerji returned to college to complete her education. However, inspired by her cousin Kajol's success in Hindi films, she decided to pursue a full-time career in films.
In 1998, Mukerji starred opposite Aamir Khan in Vikram Bhatt's action film Ghulam, her first commercial success. Though her role in the film was brief, the song "Aati Kya Khandala" earned her public recognition. Due to Mukerji's husky voice, Bhatt had someone with a higher pitched voice dub her lines; Mukerji stated that it was done as her voice "did not suit the character". In the same year, Karan Johar cast her opposite Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in his directorial debut Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The role was originally written for Twinkle Khanna, but when she and several other leading ladies rejected it, Johar signed Mukerji on the insistence of Khan and the filmmaker Aditya Chopra. She played Khan's character's love interest and later wife, Tina who dies after giving birth to their daughter. Johar had originally intended to dub Mukerji's voice, but she improved her diction and eventually provided her own voice. Reviewing the film for India Today, Nandita Chowdhury wrote that it was "the gorgeous Rani who steals the show. Oozing oomph from every pore, she also proves herself an actress whose time has come". Kuch Kuch Hota Hai proved a breakthrough for Mukerji; it had earnings of over ₹1.03 billion (US$11 million) to emerge as the year's top-grossing Hindi film, and won eight Filmfare Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Mukerji. Following this, she had starring roles in Mehndi (1998) and Hello Brother (1999), critical and commercial disappointments that failed to propel her career forward.
By 2000, Mukerji wanted to avoid typecasting as a "standard Hindi film heroine" and thus decided to portray more challenging roles in addition to the archetypical glamorous lead. In Badal and Bichhoo, two male-centric action dramas (both starring Bobby Deol), she played roles that were met with little acclaim from critics. A supporting role in Kamal Haasan's bilingual film Hey Ram proved more rewarding. The film was a partly fictionalised account of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and Mukerji played a Bengali school teacher who is raped and murdered during communal riots in Calcutta. Having only portrayed glamorous roles thus far, she was challenged by Haasan's insistence on realism and to appear on screen without wearing make-up; she believed that the experience changed her approach to acting. The controversial subject matter of Hey Ram led to poor box office earnings, but the film was critically acclaimed and selected as India's official entry to the Oscars. A critic of Deccan Herald took note of her performance. After starring in the romantic comedies Hadh Kar Di Aapne and Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye, Mukerji starred alongside Salman Khan and Preity Zinta in the romantic comedy Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega, which earned her second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. Padmaraj Nair of Screen found her role to be "too meagre for her to prove herself" but added that "she is quite adequate in whatever scenes she has been given". It was a moderate box-office success. Mukerji's first film of 2001, Chori Chori Chupke Chupke, was released after controversy over the film's funding by the Mumbai underworld delayed it by a few months. The film, based on surrogacy, marked her second collaboration with Salman Khan and Zinta. Film critic Sukanya Verma found Mukerji to be "handicapped with a role that doesn't give her much scope" and preferred the "meatier" role of Zinta. The film played well at the box office. In Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai and Nayak: The Real Hero, films that failed to gain a wide audience theatrically, Mukerji played the love interests of Abhishek Bachchan and Anil Kapoor respectively. In a review for the latter film, Sarita Tanwar of Rediff.com bemoaned that she had "very little to do except being part of some magnificently picturised songs". She had an extended cameo in her final release that year, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. An article in Mint summarised that a majority of her roles post Kuch Kuch Hota Hai were "inconsequential".
Mukerji began collaborating with Yash Raj Films in 2002, when the company cast her in two productions: Mujhse Dosti Karoge!, a romantic comedy co-starring Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor, and Saathiya, a remake of the Tamil romance Alaipayuthey. The former performed poorly at the box office, as did her two collaborations with Govinda that year—Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai and Chalo Ishq Ladaaye. The romantic drama Saathiya, however, proved a turning point in her career. At the 48th Filmfare Awards, she received her first Best Actress nomination and was awarded the Critics Award for Best Actress (shared with Manisha Koirala in Company). Shaad Ali cast her in the role of Suhani Sharma, a medical student who deals with the troubles of being married at a young age, for the vulnerability that he found in her. She refused the offer at first as she disliked the idea of remaking an accomplished film but was convinced to accept the part by the film's producer Aditya Chopra. In it, she played opposite Vivek Oberoi, with whom she did not enjoy working, saying that his "attitude was bothersome". Saathiya emerged as a commercial success. The BBC wrote that "Mukerji plays the character of a middle-class girl with great conviction", and Udita Jhunjhunwala of Mid-Day added that "her expressions and acting are understated in a role that fits her like a glove".
The year 2003 marked the beginning of the most successful period in Mukerji's career. She replaced Aishwarya Rai to play the lead opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Aziz Mirza's romance Chalte Chalte. Media reports suggested that Rai was replaced after feuding with her then boyfriend Salman Khan on the film's sets, but Shah Rukh Khan insisted that Mukerji had been the original choice for the role. Mukerji believed that the theme of Chalte Chalte, which dealt with misunderstandings between a married couple, was similar to that of Saathiya, and she tried to lend variety to the role by putting "them against a different background". She has said that working with Shah Rukh Khan was a learning experience for her, and he would often scold her if she performed inadequately. A commercial success, Box Office India credited it as a career comeback for Mukerji, and she received her second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. None of her other releases of the year—Chori Chori, Calcutta Mail, and LOC: Kargil—made a mark. At the 50th Filmfare Awards, Mukerji won both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, becoming the only actress to win both awards in the same year. The Best Supporting Actress win was for Mani Ratnam's Yuva (2004), a composite film with an ensemble cast, about three youngsters from different strata of society whose lives intersect by a car accident; Mukerji was cast as Shashi Biswas, a poor Bengali housewife who is abused by her husband, a local goon (Abhishek Bachchan). She based her role on her house helps who were abused by their husbands and observed their body language and speaking style. Taran Adarsh wrote, "Amongst the leading ladies, it is Rani Mukerji who is the best of the lot. The role demanded an actress of substance and Rani more than lives up to the expectations." She won the Best Actress award for her starring role as Rhea Prakash in Kunal Kohli's Hum Tum (2004), a romantic comedy about two headstrong individuals who meet at different stages of their lives. The film pitted her opposite Saif Ali Khan and proved one of the biggest commercial successes of the year. The Hindu found Mukerji's portrayal of Rhea to be "self-assuredly competent" and Tanmaya Kumar Nanda of Rediff.com wrote, "Rani is her usual collected self, changing into the many hues of her character with the ease of a chameleon". This success continued when Yash Chopra cast her in his period romantic drama Veer-Zaara (2004). Set against the background of India–Pakistan relations, it is about the titular star-crossed lovers (Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta). In a part originally written for a man, Mukerji played a Pakistani lawyer who tries to help the couple. With a worldwide gross of ₹940 million (US$9.8 million), Veer-Zaara emerged as the highest-grossing Hindi film of the year, and it was later screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Derek Elley of Variety took note of the "quietly dignified perf from Mukerji", and the BBC opined that she "deserves praise for her acting. To act through your eyes and not using dialogue is an art. Rani for one, has perfected this." She won the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress, and received her fourth nomination in the same category at Filmfare.
