Anushka Sharma

 ( 1988 Births ) 

Later in 2010, Sharma completed her three-film contract with Yash Raj Films by starring in Band Baaja Baaraat, a romantic comedy directed by Maneesh Sharma and co-starring debutant Ranveer Singh. Her role was that of Shruti Kakkar, an ambitious middle-class Punjabis girl who starts her own wedding planner business. In preparation for the part, Sharma learned to speak in the Punjabi dialect, which she cited as the toughest part of her role; she described the way the lead characters in the film interact as "crude but cute" and it required her to "talk fast, sometimes mix words and even omit words completely". Trade analysts expressed doubt on Band Baaja Baaraats financial prospect, citing the middling response to Yash Raj Films' last few productions, the lack of a male star, and saying that by then Sharma was an "almost-forgotten" actress. However, Band Baaja Baaraat earned positive reviews and emerged as a sleeper hit. Sharma's performance was praised by critics, many of whom cited it as her best work to that point. The critic Anupama Chopra wrote that Sharma "comes into her own as the ambitious Delhi girl, who dreams of upgrading to multi-crore Sainik Farms weddings". For her work in the film, Sharma received her second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

Sharma's first venture not to be produced by Yash Raj Films was the drama Patiala House (2011) directed by Nikkhil Advani and co-starring Akshay Kumar. The film tells the story of a budding cricketer (played by Kumar) who encounters trouble in convincing his father of his profession; Sharma was cast as the love interest of Kumar's character. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com praised Sharma's work and labelled her a "metaphor for energy". That same year, she re-united with co-star Ranveer Singh and director Maneesh Sharma for the comedy-drama Ladies vs Ricky Bahl. She featured as Ishika Desai, a salesgirl hired to outwit a conman (essayed by Singh), who ends up falling in love with him instead. The film and Sharma's performance received mixed reviews, with Piyali Dasgupta of NDTV calling her "believable but not endearing". Despite mixed reviews, the film was a moderate success at the box office.

In 2012, Sharma played a supporting role alongside Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif in Yash Chopra's "swan song", the romance Jab Tak Hai Jaan, which marked her fifth collaboration with Yash Raj Films and her second with Khan. She was cast as Akira Rai, a Discovery Channel reporter who harbours ambitions of being a documentary filmmaker. Rajeev Masand wrote that Sharma "brings a spark to the film", but Raja Sen disagreed and said that "while Anushka can indeed play spunky, she needed here to tone it down several notches". For her role, she won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. Jab Tak Hai Jaan proved to be the third highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2012.

Sharma next appeared in Vishal Bhardwaj's Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013), a political satire set in a village in Haryana. Co-starring alongside Pankaj Kapur, Imran Khan and Shabana Azmi, Sharma played the titular role of Bijlee Mandola, a strong-headed girl who engages in a romantic affair with Khan's character despite being engaged to another man. The film received positive to mixed reviews from critics, and underperformed at the box office. Several critics noted that Sharma was being stereotyped as a loud and loquacious girl; Raja Sen noted that she "is great in a couple of scenes near the climax," though Kanika Sikka of Zee News was more critical and found her "unconvincing".

In Anurag Kashyap's period crime drama Bombay Velvet (2015), (based on the historian Gyan Prakash's book Mumbai Fables) co-starring Ranbir Kapoor and Karan Johar, Sharma was cast as a jazz singer, Rosie Noronha. Her character was referenced from the actresses Brigitte Bardot, Helen and Waheeda Rehman. To prepare, Sharma watched films of the 1950s and 1960s, and documentaries about hair and make-up. She also used temporary lip enhancers for the part, citing it as the reason behind her changed appearance on a chat show in 2014, and refuted media speculation about having undergone plastic surgery. Bombay Velvet was screened at the Locarno Festival and Bucheon film festivals; critical opinion was mixed. Writing for Business Standard, Ritika Bhatia praised Sharma's performance in the song "Dhadaam Dhadaam": "she fills the stage with such raw emotion that her mascara-laden tears and fake eyelashes flutter with arresting passion". However, the film failed to recoup its investment. In the same year, Sharma featured in the supporting role of a dancer aboard a cruise ship in Zoya Akhtar's Dil Dhadakne Do, an ensemble comedy-drama in which she was featured opposite Ranveer Singh. The song sequence "Pehli Baar" was choreographed by her and Singh; Shilpa Jamkhandikar of Reuters praised their on-screen chemistry and described it as "crackling". Her performances in NH10 and Dil Dhadakne Do earned Sharma Filmfare Award nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.

Sharma next reunited with Yash Raj Films in Sultan (2016), a romantic sports drama from the writer-director Ali Abbas Zafar. She took on the role of Aarfa Hussain, a wrestler from Haryana who inspires the title character (played by Salman Khan) to take up the sport. Sharma was initially hesitant to play the part as she did not have the physique of a wrestler; she researched on different weight categories to "beat people's perception that all wrestlers are huge." She trained for six weeks in the sport, learned to speak the Haryanvi dialect, and interacted with female wrestlers from the state. The film and her performance received mixed reviews. Critics were appreciative of her substantial role in an androcentric film; Filmfares Rachit Gupta described Sharma as "the best thing in the film" and noted that "even though she doesn't have the physique of a wrestler, her spirited performance makes you believe in her tough but emotional character." However, Suprateek Chatterjee of HuffPost felt that she was unconvincing as a wrestler, writing that "she possesses literally zero muscles and somehow always finds the time to get her make-up just right." With earnings of over worldwide, Sultan ranks among Indian cinema's biggest grossers.

Sharma achieved further success later that year when she played the lead female role of Alizeh Khan, a free-spirited girl in a loveless relationship in Karan Johar's romantic drama Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, alongside Ranbir Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai. Mike Maccahil of The Guardian took note of how much Sharma "terrific spikiness" and her chemistry with Kapoor helped a mediocre picture. In another typical mixed review, Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times praised Sharma's empowered female lead. Sukanya Verma ranked her performance number four in Rediffs list of top ten performances of the year. The film earned over worldwide, and Sharma received a Best Actress nomination at the 62nd Filmfare Awards. With two top-grossing films in 2016, Bollywood Hungama ranked Sharma as the most successful Bollywood actress of the year.