Rani Mukerji is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films.
82 Facts About Rani Mukerji
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Rani Mukerji had her first commercial success with the action film Ghulam and breakthrough with the romance Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
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Rani Mukerji established herself by starring in several commercially successful romantic films, including Chalte Chalte, Hum Tum, Veer-Zaara, and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, and the crime comedy Bunty Aur Babli.
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Rani Mukerji gained praise for playing an abused wife in the political thriller Yuva and a deaf and blind woman in the drama Black.
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Rani Mukerji is involved with humanitarian causes and is vocal about issues faced by women and children.
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Rani Mukerji has participated in concert tours and stage shows, and featured as a talent judge for the 2009 reality show Dance Premier League.
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Rani Mukerji is married to filmmaker Aditya Chopra, with whom she has a daughter.
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Rani Mukerji was born in Mumbai on 21 March 1978.
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Rani Mukerji's mother, Krishna Mukherjee, is a former playback singer.
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Rani Mukerji's elder brother, Raja Mukherjee, is a film producer and director.
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Rani Mukerji's maternal aunt, Debashree Roy, is a Bengali film actress and her paternal cousin, Kajol, is a Hindi film actress and her contemporary.
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Rani Mukerji said, "There were already too many actresses at home and I wanted to be someone different".
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Rani Mukerji received her education at Maneckji Cooper High School in Juhu and graduated with a degree in Home Science from SNDT Women's University.
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Rani Mukerji is a trained Odissi dancer and began learning the dance form while in the tenth grade.
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Rani Mukerji, a practising Hindu, takes part in the festivities with her entire family.
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Rani Mukerji's father disapproved of a full-time career in film at such a young age, so she rejected the offer.
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At age 18, following her mother's suggestion that she pursue acting on an experimental basis, Rani Mukerji accepted leading roles in the social drama Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat, Khan's second offer to her, and her father's Bengali film Biyer Phool, both of which were released on the same day in October 1996.
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In 1998, Rani Mukerji starred opposite Aamir Khan in Vikram Bhatt's action film Ghulam, her first commercial success.
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Rani Mukerji played Khan's character's love interest and later wife, Tina who dies after giving birth to their daughter.
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Kuch Kuch Hota Hai proved a breakthrough for Rani Mukerji; it had earnings of over 1.03 billion to emerge as the year's top-grossing Hindi film, and won eight Filmfare Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Rani Mukerji.
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In Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai and Nayak: The Real Hero, films that failed to gain a wide audience theatrically, Rani Mukerji played the love interests of Abhishek Bachchan and Anil Kapoor respectively.
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Rani Mukerji 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.
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The BBC wrote that "Rani 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".
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Rani Mukerji replaced Aishwarya Rai to play the lead opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Aziz Mirza's romance Chalte Chalte.
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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 Rani Mukerji had been the original choice for the role.
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Rani 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".
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Rani Mukerji has said that working with Shah Rukh Khan was a learning experience for her, and he would often scold her if she performed inadequately.
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At the 50th Filmfare Awards, Rani Mukerji won both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, becoming the only actress to win both awards in the same year.
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The Best Supporting Actress win was for Mani Ratnam's Yuva, a composite film with an ensemble cast, about three youngsters from different strata of society whose lives intersect by a car accident; Rani Mukerji was cast as a poor Bengali housewife who is abused by her husband, a local goon.
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Rani Mukerji based her role on her house helps who were abused by their husbands, and observed their body language and speaking style.
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In 2005, Outlook magazine published that Rani Mukerji had established herself as the most successful actress of contemporary Hindi cinema.
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Bhansali wrote the part of the blind-deaf girl specifically for Rani Mukerji, who was initially hesitant to take on the role due to its "challenging" subject matter.
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Rani Mukerji received another Best Actress nomination that year at Filmfare for her work opposite Abhishek Bachchan in Bunty Aur Babli, which marked her fifth collaboration with Yash Raj Films.
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Rani Mukerji played the title character of Babli, a con woman.
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Rani Mukerji followed it with Amol Palekar's fantasy film Paheli, reuniting her with Shah Rukh Khan.
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Rani Mukerji's role was that of Heera, a prostitute who becomes the love interest of Pandey.
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Derek Elley mentioned that despite a small role, Rani Mukerji made "the most of her feisty nautch-girl".
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Rani Mukerji turned down an offer from Mira Nair to star in the English film The Namesake, choosing instead to reteam with Karan Johar in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, a drama about infidelity.
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Rani Mukerji was excited to play the part of a mother for the first time, and modelled her character after her own mother.
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Rani Mukerji's portrayal earned her a seventh Best Actress nomination at Filmfare, but the film had poor critical and financial returns.
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Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express noted that Rani Mukerji was responsible for "hold[ing] the film together, even if her part, both as the ingenue and the hooker, doesn't have freshness".
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Rani Mukerji played a prostitute in Bhansali's Saawariya, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's White Nights, co-starring Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor.
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Rani Mukerji insisted that the consecutive prostitutes she played were different from each other, with the one in Saawariya having "no problem with her profession".
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Rani Mukerji had high expectations from the film in which she played a cricket-obsessed Punjabi village girl masquerading as a man, and it had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
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Rani Mukerji agreed to appear on television to gain visibility during a low phase in her film career.
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Rani Mukerji argues a lot and proudly labels herself a bitch but her hair stays perfectly in place and in the end, she even gets to do a super-hero-like slow motion walk.
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Rani Mukerji next accepted a leading role in the comedy of manners Aiyyaa.
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In 2013, Rani Mukerji starred in the anthology film Bombay Talkies consisting of four short films.
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Rani Mukerji was part of the segment helmed by Johar, in which she played a journalist who discovers that her husband is gay.
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Rani Mukerji took on the role to show girls "how they need to protect themselves".
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Rani Mukerji was keen to work on a project that would accommodate her parental commitments and found it in the comedy-drama Hichki.
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Rani Mukerji interacted with Cohen and she trained to make her character's motor and vocal tics appear spontaneous and not rehearsed.
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Rani Mukerji reprised her role as Shivani Shivaji Roy in Mardaani 2, directed by Gopi Puthran, who wrote the first film.
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The Indian Express wrote that Rani Mukerji is "in command right through as she works to a script which pushes her to the fore at every given chance", but Rahul Desai of Film Companion criticised her for overplaying Roy "as more of a Dhoom franchise character" than a cop.
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The commercial success of three consecutive films led Filmfare to credit Rani Mukerji for breaking "the stereotype that actresses have battled for generations that post marriage and kids, an actress' career gets over in Bollywood".
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In 2021, Rani Mukerji reprised her part as Babli from Bunty Aur Babli in the successor Bunty Aur Babli 2.
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Rani Mukerji next starred in Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway, a drama about a real-life Bengali woman whose children were taken away by the Norwegian Child Welfare Services.
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Rani Mukerji based her character's diction and mannerisms on her own mother.
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Rani Mukerji has said that "the time spent being a mother is the happiest period of my life".
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Rani Mukerji has said that she believes in maintaining a work-life balance after motherhood, adding that "it is extremely important for [a mother] to have a career and use her time constructively".
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Rani Mukerji has participated in several concert tours and televised award ceremonies.
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The "Temptations 2004" concert had Rani Mukerji perform alongside Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal and Priyanka Chopra in 19 stage shows worldwide.
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In 2010, Rani Mukerji performed at a concert in the Army Stadium of Dhaka, Bangladesh with several Bollywood actors including Shah Rukh Khan, Rampal and Ishaa Koppikar.
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Rani Mukerji was all set to make her appearance at Cannes Film Festival, 2011 with Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Karan Johar, but later opted out due to her father's ill health.
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Rani Mukerji has been part of documentaries including Bollywood im Alpenrausch, Gambling, Gods and LSD and The Outer World of Shah Rukh Khan.
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Rani Mukerji walked ramp for Salman Khan's Being Humans fantastic 40s era fashion during "The Couture for a Cause - The Being Human Show" in 2010.
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Alongside her acting career, Rani Mukerji is involved with humanitarian causes and is vocal about issues faced by women and children.
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Rani Mukerji has made public appearances to support other charities and causes.
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In March 2006, Rani Mukerji celebrated her birthday with the physically challenged children of the Helen Keller Institute; she had previously worked with them while preparing for her role in Black.
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In 2014, Rani Mukerji attended a charity dinner on child abuse in London, where she was felicitated by Prince Charles for raising awareness on the issue through her work in Mardaani.
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Rani Mukerji attended "Junoon" charity cricket match, hosted by the Rotaract Club of HR College Mumbai in 2012.
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Rani Mukerji appeared as celebrity guest on Kaun Banega Crorepatis Hindi and Bengali version, after which she donated the received prize money for social causes.
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Rani Mukerji donated Hindi versions prize money to the Bandra Holy Family Hospital, for their NICU centre and donated Bengali versions money for other charity works.
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Rani Mukerji is considered in the media as one of the most popular and accomplished actresses of Bollywood.
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Indo-Asian News Service reported that during her initial years in the industry, Rani Mukerji was written off as the successful Kajol's poor cousin for being "plump" and "short".
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Raja Sen opined that despite that, Rani Mukerji "slogged her way with grit" to emerge a successful star.
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Rani Mukerji actively avoids typecasting, and has been credited in the media for her versatility.
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At the peak of her career, Rani Mukerji featured in listings of the most attractive Indian celebrities, was one of the highest-paid actresses in Bollywood, and the brand ambassador for a number of products.
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Rani Mukerji featured in Box Office India's top actresses listing for six years and ranked first for two consecutive years.
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Since 2007, Rani Mukerji's popularity was on a decline and she lost out on her brand endorsements to a number of younger actresses.
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Rani Mukerji was placed in Outlook Indias 75 Best Bollywood Actresses list.
82.
Rani Mukerji won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for Saathiya and Black, and the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for Hum Tum and Black.