Katrina Turquotte (born 16 July 1983) is a British actress who primarily appears in Hindi-language films under the name Katrina Kaif. She is one of the highest-paid actors in India and has garnered numerous honours for her work, including four Screen Awards, four Zee Cine Awards, and three Filmfare Award nominations. While her acting has been met with mixed reviews, her dancing in a series of hit item songs has earned her widespread acclaim.
Kaif, who was born in Hong Kong, spent three years in London but had previously lived in various other places. Starting when she was just a teenager, she was given modelling jobs left and right. Indian director Kaizad Gustad discovered her at a London fashion event and cast her in his critically panned and commercially unsuccessful film Boom (2003). Kaif had a great modelling career in India, but she had trouble landing acting roles because of her limited Hindi proficiency.
Kaif’s Bollywood popularity began with the romantic comedies Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya? (2005) and Namastey London (2005), both of which she starred in after making her debut with the Telugu film Malliswari (2004). A string of successful films followed, although she faced criticism for her performance, the sameness of her parts, and her preference for leading men.
Kaif garnered Filmfare Award for Best Actress nominations for her leading roles in the thriller New York (2009) and the romantic comedy Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (2011). During this time, she starred in the critically acclaimed films Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), Raajneeti (2010), and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011) and the commercially successful action blockbusters Ek Tha Tiger (2012), Dhoom 3 (2013), and Bang Bang! (2014). They were followed by a string of financial bombs, with the exception of the action films Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) and Sooryavanshi (2021) and the drama Bharat (2019), all of which were huge successes at the box office. Zee Cine’s Best Supporting Actress award went to Kaif for her role as an alcoholic actress in the 2018 romance movie Zero.
Kaif is consistently ranked among the most famous and beautiful people in India. She is a frequent product endorser and has just released her own cosmetics line called Kay Beauty in 2019. She is active in both the theatre community and her mother’s charity, Relief Projects India, which provides education and healthcare to children from low-income families in India.
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Katrina Kaif Childhood
Taking the surname of her mother, Turquotte (or Turcotte), Katrina Kaif was born on July 16, 1983, in British Hong Kong. Her parents are British businessman Mohammed Kaif and English lawyer and charity worker Suzanne (or Susanna) Kaif. Stephanie, Christine, and Natasha are her older sisters; Melissa, Sonia, and Isabel are her younger ones; and her older brother’s name is Sebastien. When Kaif was little, her parents split up and her dad left for America. She said that she and her brothers were raised solely by their mother and that their father played no role in their upbringing at any point. The Kaif family has lived in a number of different countries for differing amounts of time due to Kaif’s mother’s work as a social activist.
After three years in London, Kaif relocated to India. Kaif’s modelling career began at the tender age of 14 after she won a beauty contest in Hawaii and was cast in an accompanying jewellery ad campaign. As time went on, she became a professional model in London, walking the runway during London Fashion Week for various agencies. Around this time, at the recommendation of an Asian friend, she made her first trip to India.
Katrina Kaif ‘s Film Career
Kaif caught the eye of London-based filmmaker Kaizad Gustad at a fashion event. Her first film role was alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Gulshan Grover, Jackie Shroff, Madhu Sapre, and Padma Lakshmi in the Hindi-English heist film Boom, directed by Gustad. Kaif had more offers while filming in India, so she opted to stay, and she changed her surname to her father’s so that it would be simpler to pronounce. After walking the runway for Rohit Bal at India Fashion Week and being included in the first Kingfisher Calendar, she became a well-known model. Kaif’s career as a model took off in India as she became the face of major brands including Coca-Cola, LG, Fevicol, and Samsung.
After failure of movie Boom and her lack of Hindi speaking skills, film directors were unwilling to cast Katrina in their films. Kaif quickly started taking Hindi classes to improve her pronunciation. Director Mahesh Bhatt thought Kaif’s performance on set to be unsatisfactory compared to her audition, thus he swapped her out for Tara Sharma in Saaya in 2003.
After her first Bollywood film bombed, Kaif starred as the title character in the Telugu film Malliswari (2004), playing a princess who is forced to run from her violent guardian. Kaif reportedly earned 7.5 million (US$94,000) for the film, the biggest for a female lead at the time in South Indian cinema. She earned multiple film offers after being nominated for a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu, despite the fact that critics had panned her performance. Malliswari generated a healthy profit. Kaif made a cameo appearance in the 2005 Ram Gopal Varma film Sarkar as Abhishek Bachchan’s girlfriend.
Her next film was Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya? opposite Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen, and Sohail Khan. The film was a successful version of the romantic comedy Cactus Flower, directed by David Dhawan. Kaif won the Stardust Award for Breakthrough Performance – Female for her portrayal of a fashion model contemplating suicide.
Humko Deewana Kar Gaye (2006), directed by Raj Kanwar, was a flop and the first of many projects in which she and Akshay Kumar co-starred. Two people who share similar interests meet and fall in love despite both being in committed relationships with others. Kaif starred alongside Mammootty as an actress in the criminal thriller Balram vs. Tharadas, released in Malayalam the same year.
The year 2007 was a turning point for Kaif’s career, as it featured appearances in four major Bollywood hits. Her first “dominant” role was in the romantic comedy Namastey London. For her part as Jasmeet Malhotra, a spoiled British Indian girl who is set on marrying her self-centered British lover against her parents’ objections, Kaif drew inspiration from her own experiences living in London.
Apne, a film about a sports team, featured Kaif in a small but significant supporting part, as a doctor. The film was eagerly awaited because it included the first on-screen appearance of Dharmendra alongside his kids, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol. Katrina Kaif’s next film Partner film was a huge commercial success, grossing 1.03 billion (about US$13 million) over the world. Welcome, directed by Anees Bazmee, was another big hit of her career. This film was the second highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2007, despite receiving primarily poor reviews.
Abbas-action Mustan’s thriller Race, about two stepbrothers turned competitors who are in competing for their father’s insurance money, was the first of Kaif’s three 2008 films. Kaif portrayed Saif Ali Khan’s secretary, who is also the girlfriend of Saif’s stepbrother (Akshaye Khanna) in the film. Kaif reunited with Akshay Kumar in Anees Bazmee’s action comedy Singh Is Kinng, which became her sixth consecutive box office triumph with a worldwide gross of 1.25 billion (US$16 million). The year ended poorly for Kaif at the box office with Subhash Ghai’s drama Yuvvraaj.
Because of her limited proficiency in Hindi and other Indian languages, voice actors have usually had to replace Kaif’s speaking parts in most of her films. Her films during this time period did well at the box office, but critics panned her for playing minor roles in films that starred mostly men and received positive reviews despite her poor acting. With no predetermined genre in mind, she rationalised her selection of high-profile assignments as educational.
Katrina Kaif was a part of Shah Rukh Khan’s “Temptations Reloaded” concert tour in 2008. The tour, which also featured Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal, kicked off in June in Amsterdam and wrapped up four months later in front of 15,000 people at Dubai’s Festival City Arena.
Katrina Kaif wanted to move away from the “arm candy” roles she had been given. Kabir Khan’s New York, a drama set in the terrorist world, provided one such occasion (2009). Three friends’ lives are intertwined in this drama about what happens when one of them is wrongfully incarcerated in the wake of 9/11, costarring John Abraham and Neil Nitin Mukesh. Maya, a college girl who gets married to a terrorist without realising it, was played by Kaif. Kaif could relate to the character since she, too, had experienced racism in London. The movie New York did well financially and was critically acclaimed. For New York, Kaif was nominated for the Best Actress Filmfare Award, which was her first such nomination.
Next, she made a brief appearance in Blue, India’s first underwater horror flick. Kaif co-starred with Ranbir Kapoor in the Rajkumar Santoshi film Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009), a comedy in which Kaif played an orphan who is compelled to marry a wealthy man. She finished the year with the Priyadarshan comedy De Dana Dan. She shared the stage with Akon at the 2009 Indian Premier League’s final match’s celebration at Johannesburg’s Wanderers Stadium.
Katrina Kaif starred alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar, Manoj Bajpai, and Sarah Thompson in Prakash Jha’s political thriller Raajneeti in 2010. Both The Mahabharata and The Godfather served as sources of ideas for the movie. The film depicted an intense election campaign in Bhopal between two parties that used deceit, corruption, and violence to win power.
In Tees Maar Khan (2010), Kaif co-starred with Akshay Kumar for the sixth time, playing an aspiring actress who happens to be the girlfriend of a criminal (Kumar). Kaif had a memorable dance performance in the hit tune “Sheila Ki Jawani” in the film. Kaif’s belly dance in the song was choreographed by Veronica D’Souza, and the song was choreographed by the film’s director, Farah Khan. The movie Tees Maar Khan, despite the success of the song, was poorly received by reviewers and underperformed at the box office.
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, a coming-of-age drama directed by Zoya Akhtar, starred Kaif and Hrithik Roshan the next year. Kaif plays Laila, a diving instructor who falls in love with Roshan’s character and helps him overcome his workaholism, throughout the film’s narrative of three pals on a bachelor vacation. She dug her nails into co-star Roshan out of fear during the scuba diving sequence she had to film. Both audiences and critics enjoyed the film.
With co-stars Imran Khan and Ali Zafar, Kaif appeared in the Yash Raj Films romantic comedy Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (2011). She found the role of Dimple Dixit, whose voluble and erratic nature stood in stark contrast to Kaif’s, to be very taxing. Opening weekend reviews were divided, although Kaif received high marks for her performance.
Katrina Kaif performed the Lavani (a Maharashtrian folk dance) dancing style in the 2012 item number “Chikni Chameli” from the film Agneepath. Kaif found it difficult to adapt to the new style of the music video, which she filmed in under ten days. Next, Katrina Kaif was in Ek Tha Tiger, a spy thriller directed by Kabir Khan, where she played a Pakistani ISI agent who fell in love with an Indian RAW agent. As the highest-grossing Bollywood film of the year, Ek Tha Tiger made 3.1 billion (US$39 million) over the world.
In Yash Chopra’s final film, the romantic Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Kaif starred alongside Shah Rukh Khan. Meera, the character she portrayed, was a promiscuous woman who, should her comatose boyfriend recover, vowed to cease their affair. The film was a commercial success, earning a total of 2.11 billion (about US$26 million) from ticket sales around the world.
Kaif performed with Shah Rukh Khan again during his “Temptations Reloaded” event in Muscat in front of an audience of over 18,000. She also appeared in Kolkata for the opening ceremony of the 2013 Indian Premier League alongside Khan, Deepika Padukone, and Pitbull. She shared screen time with Aamir Khan in the 2013 action film Dhoom 3 directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya. She trained for a full year with Pilates, functional training, and aerial straps to be in shape for her upcoming circus performance. The film Dhoom 3 earned 5.42 billion (about US$68 million) at the box office, making it the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time until PK overtook it in 2014.
After that, Katrina Kaif featured in Siddharth Anand’s 2010 action comedy Bang Bang! She took on the role of a bank teller who is caught in the crosshairs of a secret agent (Hrithik Roshan). In 2015, Kaif only appeared in Phantom, a post-26/11 counter-terrorism drama directed by Kabir Khan and co-starring Saif Ali Khan. Kaif studied Arabic so that she would be more prepared to play Nawaz Mistry, a former RAW agent. Her next films Fitoor and Baar Baar Dekho bombed at the box office.
After that, Kaif appeared in the Anurag Basu comedy-adventure Jagga Jasoos alongside Ranbir Kapoor. In 2017, the film finally saw the light of day after years of delay due to rewrites and retakes. It opened to lukewarm reviews and poor box office results. In the same year, Kaif and Salman Khan reunited for the sequel to 2012’s Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai, directed by Ali Abbas Zafar.
Thugs of Hindostan, an action-adventure film set in the 1970s, and Zero, a romantic comedy-drama, both starred Kaif and were produced on huge budgets in 2018. Both movies bombed at the box office despite being among the year’s most anticipated releases. In regards to the former, Kaif stated that she did not put in much effort because of her small role. She was nominated for a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress award and won the Zee Cine Award for her performance in Zero.
Kaif worked with Salman Khan and Ali Abbas Zafar again in 2019’s Bharat, a remake of the South Korean film Ode to My Father (2014). One of the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2019, Bharat broke records. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Rohit Shetty’s Sooryavanshi, in which Kaif co-starred with Akshay Kumar, was postponed numerous times before its eventual release in November 2021. Kaif, a fan of Shetty’s bombastic filmmaking style, played Kumar’s on-screen wife. The film was a big hit at the box office.
Kaif will appear alongside Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ishaan Khatter in the upcoming November 2022 release of the comedic horror film Phone Bhoot. Tiger 3, the third instalment in the Tiger franchise, and Merry Christmas, directed by Sriram Raghavan and starring Vijay Sethupathi, are under production. In addition, she’s signed on to star with Priyanka Chopra and Alia Bhatt in Farhan Akhtar’s Jee Le Zaraa.
Katrina Kaif’s Family
Kaif is very close to her family, and her upbringing without a father has made her feel responsible for them. Kaif claims that she was raised to practise the faith of her choosing and calls herself a “strong believer in God,” despite the fact that her parents are Christians and Muslims, respectively. Before her movies are released, she prays at the Siddhivinayak Temple, goes to Mass at Mount Mary Church, and pays her respects at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, a Sufi shrine.
Because of the intense interest in her private life from the Indian press, Kaif is reticent to talk about it. Kaif has said that her first “serious” relationship was with actor Salman Khan. She attributes her self-assurance and sense of direction to Khan, and the two remain close friends. During the making of Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, rumours circulated that Kaif was dating actor Ranbir Kapoor. In August 2013, Stardust magazine published leaked photos of Kapoor and Kaif on vacation, which many took to be evidence of their love involvement with one another.
Katrina Kaif’s Wedding with Vicky Kaushal
Kaif wed actor Vicky Kaushal on December 9, 2021, in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, at the Six Senses Resort, Fort Barwara. Their wedding received extensive notice in the Indian press.
Katrina Kaif’s Philanthropy Activities
Kaif is a big fan of several different charities and nonprofits. The Times of India has commended her for being discreet about her charitable efforts. Kaif’s mother founded and directs Relief Projects India, a nonprofit organisation that helps disadvantaged kids in India by, among other things, giving them access to better education, rehabilitating and teaching orphans, and reducing the prevalence of female infanticide. She contributes a portion of her annual salary and her game show prizes to the foundation. Her mother runs an orphanage called Mercy Home, and they received copies of 10 Ka Dum and Kaun Banega Crorepati as donations. Rhyme Skool (2010), an album of nursery rhymes composed by A. R. Rahman, was recorded to generate money for a new school erected by her mother’s charity in Madurai. Kaif has given his time and resources to the Claretian Mercy Home in Madurai, where he has helped to establish a maternity ward.
Kaif is an advocate for women’s rights, ending domestic abuse, and fair pay in the workplace. Education, she says, is the key to ending discrimination against women and ending violence against them. When asked about the wage difference between men and women, she has advocated for an increase in high-budget Hindi films starring women. Kaif joined the ranks of other famous people who spoke out against violence against women and girls by creating PSAs for the Pearls Wave Trust in 2010. As part of UN Women’s Orange the World effort to promote gender parity and women’s empowerment, she was asked to speak at the 2016 WeUnite conference.
Kaif has spoken out in favour of LGBT rights, cancer research, and the education of children. In 2012, she raised public awareness about breast and cervical cancer by delivering gifts to cancer survivors during a visit to the Cancer Patients Aid Association. The following year, she joined other famous faces in an advertisement for India’s National Film Development Corporation to promote the importance of education for kids. Kaif participated in the “Being Human” fashion show for charity in 2009 and 2010 as part of her work with the Being Human Foundation to rehabilitate homeless children. Kaif became an ambassador for Educate Girls in 2018, a nonprofit that works to get girls from the most underserved sections of India an education. She travelled to a little Madhya Pradesh town as an official ambassador.
She started a humanitarian programme in 2019 called #Kare initiatives under her cosmetics business Kay Beauty to help with issues including rural women finding work. Human trafficking in India has been an issue since 2007, when Kaif began working with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to address the issue. As part of NDTV’s Jai Jawan reality show, Kaif went to Jammu to meet with sepoys (2011). She was a model in the 2016 charity fashion show put on by the Sachachari Foundation and featured designer Manish Malhotra. She financed the small enterprises of one hundred Bollywood dancers in 2020, when the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and gave money to the PM CARES Fund and the Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.
Katrina Kaif’s Public Image
Katrina Kaif is one of the most well-known and respected stars in India’s entertainment industry. Because of her fame in Bollywood, many new actors and actresses have moved to India to try their luck there. Kaif is a commercially successful film star, but her acting has been met with mixed reviews.
The media frequently names Katrina Kaif as one of India’s most attractive celebrities, and she consistently places highly in polls of that nature. She was featured on Verve’s list of the 100 most powerful women in both 2009 and 2010, while FHM India dubbed her the “World’s Sexiest Woman” five times between 2008 and 2013. From 2008 through 2010 and again in 2013, the UK magazine Eastern Eye dubbed her the “Sexiest Asian Woman.”
In 2010, The Times of India named Kaif their “Most Desirable Woman”; from 2011 to 2013, she was ranked second. Mattel produced two lines of Barbie dolls based on Kaif in 2010 and 2011. In 2011, she was named “India’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People India, and three years later, she topped Maxim India’s “Hot 100” survey. She became the seventh Bollywood actor to have a wax statue of themselves put at London’s Madame Tussauds in March 2015.
In 2019, Kaif and the Indian e-commerce startup Nykaa introduced their cosmetics line, Kay Beauty. Lipsticks, foundations, highlighters, and blush compacts were all part of the collection. Her mission, she told Cosmopolitan, is to challenge narrow notions of beauty by encouraging confidence in one’s own skin and acceptance of others. It was lauded for being diverse and welcoming despite being India’s first celebrity makeup business.
Katrina Kaif is the face of several different companies’ products. These companies include Slice, Nakshatra, Lux, Panasonic, Lakmé, and L’Oréal. Kaif was named the number two most influential endorser in India by The Economic Times in 2012. In 2014, Hindustan Times stated that she was one of India’s highest-paid celebrity endorsers, earning between 50 million (US$630,000) and 60 million (US$750,000) for each endorsement. From 2012 until 2019, Kaif was one of India’s highest-earning celebrities according to Forbes, with her yearly earnings peaking at 652 million (US$8.2 million) in 2013. Forbes India estimates that she will be worth around $25 million in 2021. As of the year 2022, she has more Instagram followers than any other working Bollywood actress.
Katrina Kaif’s Cars
Katrina Kaif, like Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt, Virat Kohli, Akshay Kumar, and Ranbir Kapoor, brought a fancy Range Rover Vogue into her home in May 2019. This SUV has a 4.4-liter SD-V8 diesel engine that can produce 340 horsepower at 3500 rpm. She also owns Audi Q7. The SUV may cost anywhere from 67 to 80 lakhs in India (ex-showroom price).
Katrina Kaif is frequently seen driving around in a Mercedes ML 350, which is one of her many expensive vehicles. The automobile has a 3.0-liter 6-cylinder engine, which allows it to produce 258 horsepower and 619 Newton-meters of torque, allowing it to accelerate from 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 8.3 seconds.
Katrina Kaif’s Houses
Katrina Kaif owns several properties including a 3BHK mansion in Bandra and a smaller property in the Lokhandwala neighbourhood. Katrina kaif and her husband Vicky Kaushal have moved into the Rajmahal building in Mumbai’s ritzy Juhu neighbourhood. The 8-story building can be found in the exclusive neighbourhood of Chandrabai Nagar in Juhu.
Trivia about Katrina Kaif
- She is the first Bollywood actor to have a Barbie doll made in her likeness
- In 2015, Madame Tussaud’s in London unveiled a wax replica of her.
- Katrina has not renounced her British citizenship. Currently, she is in India on a work visa.
- Katrina made her debut in the inaugural Kingfisher Calendar.
- Katrina is an amateur painter and an avid chess player.
- From 2008–2013, FHM India crowned Katrina “World’s Sexiest Woman” five times.
Katrina Kaif’s Rare Photos
