Radhika Apte

 ( 1985 Births ) 

In 2009, Apte had her first Indian release, KBC productions' Gho Mala Asla Hava by Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Sukthankar, in which she appeared as Savitri, a village girl. She later collaborated with Bhave and Sukthankar again on the Hindi docufiction Mor Dekhne Jungle Mein. It was in that year that she also worked on Jatin Wagle's Ek Indian Manoos, Akash Khurana's Life Online, about "a bunch of youngsters working in a BPO" and Amol Palekar's Indian film, Samaantar. In 2010, she was seen in Maneej Premnath's thriller The Waiting Room and later, appeared in a significant role in Ram Gopal Varma's Rakta Charitra. On returning from London, Apte was offered a role in a large blockbuster production Hindi film, but was (in her words) kicked out of it, because they felt she was too fat to be in that film.

In 2013, she was seen in the Bengali film Rupkatha Noy. About her character, she said, "I play Sananda, an IT engineer, who is a single mother of a three-year-old child. Sananda had a dreadful past, which keeps haunting her". Apte's first four 2014 releases were Postcard, Pendulum, Legend and Vetri Selvan in three languages – Bengali, Telugu and Tamil, respectively—after which another film of hers, Lai Bhaari, released. Pendulum, which was described by Apte as a "story on magic realism which takes you through multiple layers of parallel realities, or apparent realities", had her playing a working woman in a relationship with a younger man, while in Vetri Selvan, she had played the role of a lawyer. Legend and Lai Bhaari were commercial successes, the latter breaking the opening weekend box office record and becoming the highest grossing Marathi film of all time.

In 2015, Apte gained wider recognition for her roles in six feature films released in the first eight months. In the year's first release, Sriram Raghavan's Badlapur, she had a minor supporting role, for which she shot for six days. Despite appearing only briefly in the latter part of the film, she was widely recognized and appreciated for her performance, with several critics stating that she stood out in the ensemble cast. Rediff's Raja Sen, in particular, wrote that she was "sensational" and featured in "possibly the film's finest" moment. Following a Malayalam release, Haram, her first in the language, and a Telugu release, Lion, she had her next Hindi release, the sex comedy Hunterrr directed by Harshvardhan Kulkarni. Although the film opened to mixed reviews, Apte again earned praise for her performance. While Shubha Shetty-Saha from mid-day.com described her as "excellent in an absolutely realistic role", Filmfare's Rachit Gupta wrote, "While you're at it, hand one (award) to Radhika Apte...She really comes into her own, in a character that's unconventional and full of surprises". With Badlapur and Hunterrr both achieving commercial success and winning Apte critical acclaim, she grew in popularity, breaking into the mainstream Bollywood scene, with the media dubbing her the "latest sensation of Bollywood", Bollywood's new "go-to girl" and the "new constant in Indian cinema". HuffPost India wrote, "Radhika Apte is on her way to stardom, whether she likes it or not". In late August, two more Hindi films of her, Ketan Mehta's critically acclaimed biogeographical film Manjhi - The Mountain Man, based on Dashrath Manjhi, featuring Apte as Manjhi's wife Falguni Devi, and Kaun Kitne Paani Mein, a satire on water scarcity featuring Apte as an agriculture graduate, released a week apart. Her next film was the Tamil mob film-drama Kabali, in which she was featured as the wife of Rajinikanth. Upon the release, her performance received positive feedback from critics, and the film proved to be a major commercial success as well.

In 2018, Apte co-starred with Akshay Kumar in R. Balki's comedy-drama Pad Man, based on a short story in Twinkle Khanna's book, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. It is inspired by the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham from Tamil Nadu, who campaigned for menstrual hygiene in rural India. Apte's role was that of a shy homemaker whose husband (Kumar) invents low-cost sanitary napkins. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV wrote, "Radhika Apte is, as always, a scene-stealer. She contributes majorly to ensuring that the exchanges between the protagonist and his wife do not veer into corniness."

Apte made her directorial debut with The Sleepwalkers, starring Gulshan Devaiah and Shahana Goswami. The Sleepwalkers is in competition at the Palm Springs International ShortFest 2020, under the Best Midnight Short category.

Among Apte's upcoming films are three Hindi language projects, The Field, the feature debut of Rohit Karn Batra, Leena Yadav's Parched, a U.S.-Indian co-production, and Bombairiya, an Indo – British production and a Tamil project, Ula.