Born15 March 1993 (age 24)
Nationality British Indian
Occupation Actress, singer
Years active2012–present
Parent(s)Mahesh Bhatt
Soni Razdan
Bhatt established herself in Bollywood by starring as the female lead in several commercially successful films, including the romantic drama 2 States (2014), the romantic comedy Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania (2014), the drama Kapoor & Sons (2016), the coming-of-age film Dear Zindagi (2016), and the romantic comedy Badrinath Ki Dulhania(2017). She received critical acclaim for portraying emotionally intense characters in the road drama Highway (2014), which won her the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress, and the crime drama Udta Punjab(2016), which won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.
In addition to acting in films, Bhatt has launched her own line of clothing for women. She has sung six of her film songs and participates in stage shows and concert tours.
Bhatt's first acting role was as a child artist in Sangharsh (1999), starring Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta where she played the younger version of Zinta's character. She had her first leading role in 2012 with Karan Johar'sStudent of the Year, alongside Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan.She portrayed the role of Shanaya Singhania, a sophisticated teenage girl who is in a relationship with Dhawan's character but is attracted to the character played by Malhotra.Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama wrote of her performance, "Alia's role is reminiscent of Kareena Kapoor in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Stylish, classy, born with a silver spoon, she's someone who loves to flaunt not just her clothes and bags, but also her riches. Extremely photogenic, Alia makes a super-confident debut."Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times also mentioned the similarities with Kapoor's character, but noted that her performance was "without the killer attitude." Student of the Year grossed ₹960 million (US$15 million) at the box office
In 2016, Bhatt played the supporting role of a lively young girl with a buried past in Kapoor & Sons, a drama about a dysfunctional family starring Sidharth Malhotra and Fawad Khan. The film proved to be a critical and commercial success.Bhatt then took on the part of a poverty-stricken Bihari migrant in the Indian state of Punjab in Udta Punjab(2016), a crime drama about substance abusefrom the director Abhishek Chaubey. The intense role marked a significant departure from the mostly light-hearted parts she had previously played, and in preparation, she watched documentaries on drug abuse and learned to speak a Bihari dialect.The film, co-starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, and Diljit Dosanjh, generated controversy when the Central Board of Film Certificationdeemed that the film represented Punjab in a negative light and demanded extensive censorship before its theatrical release.The Bombay High Court later cleared the film for exhibition with one scene cut.Bhatt's performance in the film was critically acclaimed, with several commentators believing that it was her best performance to that point.Raja Sen of Rediff.com wrote that Bhatt "commits to her accent and deals with the film's most unsavoury section, and is stunning during an incendiary speech that elevates the entire film to a whole other level."Bhatt continued to gain critical praise as she took on the role of an aspiring cinematographer whose life undergoes a series of changes after she consults a free-spirited psychologist (played by Shah Rukh Khan) in the coming-of-age film Dear Zindagi(2016). Writing for IndieWire, Anisha Jhaveri noted that Bhatt provides her character with "a three-dimensionality in which the somewhat annoying nature of millennial angst is balanced with an innocence that’s impossible not to recognize".The film proved a box office success as well, earning a total of ₹1.39 billion (US$22 million) worldwide.Udta Punjab and Dear Zindagi earned Bhatt several awards and nominations; for the former, she won the Screen Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Actress, and for the latter, she received an additional Best Actress nomination at Filmfare.The series of successful films continued with Bhatt's next project—the romantic comedyBadrinath Ki Dulhania (2017)—which reunited her with Khaitan and Dhawan.The film tells the story of an independent young woman (Bhatt) from rural India who refuses to conform to patriarchal expectations from her chauvinistic fiancee (Dhawan). Rachel Saltz ofThe New York Times took note of the film's statement on gender equality and wrote, "Without ever falling into the clichés of spunky Bollywood heroine, [Bhatt] effortlessly embodies that admirable thing: a modern woman."With over ₹1.95 billion(US$30 million) in box office receipts,Badrinath Ki Dulhania proved to be Bhatt's highest-grossing release.As of July 2017, Bhatt has begun filming forMeghna Gulzar's Raazi, an espionage thriller set during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, in which plays the lead role of a Kashmiri spy married to a policeman from Pakistan (played by Vicky Kaushal).In addition, she has committed to star with Ranbir Kapoor in Ayan Mukerji's Dragon about a man with superpowers, and opposite Ranveer Singh in Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy, a musical based on the life of rappers living in Mumbai's ghettos