Biography:

Ranbir Kapoor (born 28 September 1982) is an Indian film actor. Through his successful career in Hindi (Bollywood) films, he has become one of the highest-paid actors and one of the most high-profile celebrities in India. He is the recipient of several awards and nominations including five Filmfare Awards.

Kapoor is the son of actors Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor. He completed his pre-university education in Mumbai, after which he moved to New York City to pursue film-making and method acting at the School of Visual Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, respectively. Kapoor began his career in Bollywood as an assistant director on Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 2005 film Black.

Kapoor's first acting role was as the protagonist of Bhansali's 2007 tragic romance Saawariya, a box office flop for which he received his first Filmfare Award—Best Male Debut. His first commercial success was the 2008 romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno, and he was awarded the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performances in three films of 2009—the coming-of-age film Wake Up Sid, the comedy Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, and the drama Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. Kapoor won two consecutive Best Actor awards at Filmfare for portraying a troubled musician in the 2011 drama Rockstar and a deaf-mute man in the 2012 comedy-drama Barfi!. The 2013 romantic comedy Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani proved to be one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of all time and established him as a leading actor of contemporary Hindi cinema.

In addition to acting in films, Kapoor supports numerous charities and causes, is vocal about issues faced by women and is the goodwill ambassador of Shabana Azmi's Mijwan Welfare Society. His off-screen life is the subject of fervent tabloid reporting in India.

Early life and background

Ranbir Kapoor was born in Mumbai on 28 September 1982 to Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, both actors of the Hindi film industry. He is the great-grandson of Prithviraj Kapoor and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor. His elder sister, Riddhima Kapoor (born 1980) is an interiors and fashion designer. His paternal cousins Karisma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor are both actresses.

Kapoor was schooled at the Bombay Scottish School in Mahim; in an interview with The Indian Express he said that he was a "naughty kid" who was "least interested in studies and would always get punished by my teachers". Reflecting on his school life, Kapoor added, "I was never a bright student, potentially never good at dramatics, I was sometimes given one-line roles that I was happy to do so that I could bunk classes. My mother used to cry three times a year and that is when my report card used to come. I always passed but was always in the bottom five and got marks in 50s." He was, however, interested in mathematics and literature, and was particularly fond of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

The troubled marriage between his parents deeply affected him as a child. In an interview with Mumbai Mirror he recollected the fights between his parents: "Sometimes the fights would get really bad. I would be sitting on the steps, my head between my knees, till five or six in the morning, waiting for them to stop". He added that due to these experiences there was a "reservoir of emotions building up inside [him]", which compelled him to look for an outlet in films. Kapoor said that, while growing up, he was "petrified" of his father and "never had a friendly relationship [with him] because he used to stay very busy", but admitted to sharing a much closer relationship with his mother.

After completing his tenth standard examinations, Kapoor travelled to America to assist his father on his directorial debut Aa Ab Laut Chalen (1999). It was during the film's shooting schedule that he developed a closer bond with him. He subsequently enrolled at Mumbai's H.R. College of Commerce and Economics to complete his pre-university education. Upon graduating from high school, Kapoor moved to New York City to learn film-making at the School of Visual Arts and later pursued method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. He said that living alone in New York on a "shoe-string budget" taught him "the value of family and money".

In New York City, Kapoor directed and starred in two short films (entitled Passion to Love and India 1964), and spent most of his time watching world cinema. He professed that the experience of learning about movies at a film school was "almost useless" and preferred being on an actual film set. He, thus, worked as an assistant director to Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the 2005 film Black. He described the experience: "I was getting beaten up, abused, doing everything from cleaning the floor to fixing the lights from 7 am to 4 am, but I was learning every day." In an interview with CNN-IBN, Kapoor confessed that his main motive for assisting on the film was to ensure that Bhansali liked him enough to cast him as an actor for his next project.

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