Introduction

Shahid Kapoor is a talented actor. His original name was Shahid Khattar. He made his career in the film industry through his dedication and hard work. He is an attractive versatile actor underneath his calm veneer. His father Pankaj Kapoor and his mother Neelima Azeem got divorced when he was three years old and was brought up by his mother. At the age of 10, he shifted to Mumbai and eventually became a part of Shiamak Davar dancing academy from where he turned out to be an amazing dancer. Shahid Kapoor has enacted in many movies as a background dancer in the 90s. He also appeared in some music videos and became famous from the album “Aankhon Mein Tera hi Chehra”. His debut movie in a lead role was Ishq Vishk in 2003; a romantic comedy that became a hit and earned him the Filmfare Best Debut actor male award. Shahid Kapoor unlike other actors has seen a lot in his career graph and had to face a lot of criticism for coping with other celebrities but with the increasing years, he found his place in the industry. He got involved in criticism for his relationship with Kareena Kapoor but he chose to concentrate on his career, eventually, he got married to Mira Rajput in 2017 and has two children.

Early Life

Shahid Kapoor was born in Delhi and was brought up by his mother and grandparents (journalists on the Russian magazine Sputnik). He was very close to his grandfather as during his childhood he spent a lot of time together, walking to school daily, having conversations about his father, and reading through his father`s letters with his grandfather. Shahid`s grandfather always spoke well about Pankaj Kapoor even if he was a struggling actor then, and only visited once every year during Shahid`s birthdays. His mother moved to Mumbai to become an actress and got married to an actor named Rajesh Khattar from whom he got his surname Khattar still reflected on his passport. He has one maternal brother named Ishaan in the Khattar family and sister Sanah and brother Ruhaan from his paternal side with his father`s second wife Supriya Pathak.

Shahid Kapoor did his partial schooling at Gyan Bharti School in Delhi and later in Rajhans Vidyalaya in Mumbai and completed his college at Mithibai College Mumbai. He got the start of his career as a dancer in the background and also in music albums. Despite not having the gold spoon of strong family background in the movies he followed his dream to become an actor and struggled through to become an actor who was more famous than his father with his talent and charm.

Acting career

Shahid Kapoor started his career in a lead role once he was noticed in his music album which was a success, by producer Ramesh Taurani. However, he was asked to wait for a few years due to his early age of 20 and being an underweight hero. This gave Shahid the hunger to prove himself to be cast by Taurani and he worked on himself following the guidance and prepared by attending acting workshops with Naseeruddin Shah and Satyadev Dubey and his built, in the meantime Taurani found a perfect role for Shahid as per his looks and age in Ishq Vishk in 2003. Shahid was criticized for his looks was like a boy, despite of these the movie ran successfully at the box office without much marketing and promotion and won him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut.

Filmography

Shahid kept struggling through the difficulties and critics and signed Fida (Thriller) and Dil Mange More (Romantic comedy) in 2004 which brought out his acting skills. Although the movie wasn’t a big success he proved his acting skills. Patcy N of Rediff.com criticized him to copy Shah Rukh Khan in acting despite his outstanding dancing skills and to add on to this all his releases in 2005 were flops.  Namrata Joshi from Outlook said he was colorless and commented on Shahid`s pair with his co-star Rimi in 2005. Shahid`s career took a U-turn from a series of flop movies to a commercial hit at the box office with the movie Vivaah directed by Sooraj Barjatya with a revenue generation of 530 million around the world. Despite his success, Raja Sen criticized him by questioning his acting skills and that he was only trying to hide his boyish appearance in the movie. The greater success followed him from Jab We Met by Imtiaz-Ali and followed a series of movies that brought out his luck in a variety of characters. His latest hit in 2018 was Padmaavat which did a tremendous job at the box office. Shahid Kapoor won three Filmfare awards and is an example of success through rough criticism throughout his career.