Ayushmann Khurrana (born Nishant Khurrana on September 14, 1984) is a Hindi film actor and singer. He has received several awards for his portrayals of ordinary men who often defy social norms, including a National Film Award and four Filmfare Awards. He was named to Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list in 2013 and 2019, and Time named him one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2020.
In 2004, Khurrana won the second season of MTV Roadies and began her career as an anchorwoman. He made his feature film debut in 2012 with the romantic comedy Vicky Donor, for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. After a brief hiatus, he appeared in the commercially and critically successful Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015).
Khurrana rose to prominence with box-office hits such as the comedy-dramas Bareilly Ki Barfi (2017), Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017), Badhaai Ho (2018), Dream Girl (2019), and Bala (2019); the thriller Andhadhun (2018); and the crime drama Article 15 (2019). (2019). His performances in Andhadhun as a blind pianist and Article 15 as an honest cop earned him two consecutive Filmfare Critics Awards for Best Actor, as well as the National Film Award for Best Actor for the former. This success was followed by a string of films that received favorable reviews but performed poorly at the box office.
Khurrana has sung for several of his films in addition to his acting roles. He won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer for his song "Pani Da Rang," which he both sang and composed.
Childhood and education
Khurrana was born on September 14, 1984, in Chandigarh, Punjab, to Poonam and P. Nishant Khurrana, as Nishant Khurrana. When he was three years old, his parents changed his name to Ayushmann Khurrana. He attended Guru Nanak Khalsa College. He attended St. John's High School and DAV College in Chandigarh. He majored in English literature and holds a master's degree in mass communication from Panjab University's School of Communication Studies. For five years, he worked in serious theatre. During his college years, he performed in several plays at Shimla's Gaiety Theatre. He was also a founding member of the DAV College theater groups "Aaghaaz" and "Manchtantra," which are still active in Chandigarh. He wrote and performed in street plays, and he received awards at national college festivals such as Mood Indigo (IIT Bombay), OASIS (Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani), and St. Bedes Shimla. He was also nominated for Best Actor for his performance as Ashwatthama in Dharamvir Bharati's Andha Yug.
Career
Television shows and early career, 2004-2011
His first job after graduating and post-graduating in journalism was as a radio personality at BIG FM in Delhi. He hosted the show Big Chai - Maan Na Maan, Main Tera Ayushmann, for which he received the Young Achievers Award in 2007. In New Delhi, he was the youngest recipient of the Bharat Nirman Award.
He also appeared in several MTV shows, including MTV Fully Faltoo Movies, Cheque De India, and Jaadoo Ek Baar. He then became a television host, co-hosting the multiple-talent-based reality show India's Got Talent on Colors TV with Nikhil Chinapa, and Stripped, which gave the latest updates on the Indian TV industry with a comic tinge on MTV. He was also the anchor of the singing reality show Music Ka Maha Muqqabla on STAR Plus at the end of the year.
Aside from hosting the second season of MTV Rock On and India's Got Talent on Colors, he was also a member of the anchoring team of Extra Innings T20 for Indian Premier League Season 3 on SET Max with Gaurav Kapur, Samir Kochhar, and Angad Bedi, after which he accepted the offer to anchor the dance-based reality show Just Dance on STAR Plus.
2012-2015: Film debut and professional difficulties
Khurrana made his acting debut in Shoojit Sircar's romantic comedy Vicky Donor in 2012, alongside Annu Kapoor and Yami Gautam. It starred Khurrana in the titular role of a sperm donor, and it marked the production debut of actor John Abraham, who appeared in a promotional song. He attended acting workshops and spoke with medical professionals as part of his preparation. He sang "Pani Da Rang," a song he wrote and composed with Rochak Kohli in 2003, for the film's soundtrack. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com praised the film's ensemble cast, writing that Khurrana's "candid disposition and roguish face ensures his street smart drollery works like a breeze." Vicky Donor was a commercial success, earning over 610 million (US$7.6 million) against a budget of 100 million (US$1.3 million). Khurrana received awards for Best Male Debut and Best Male Playback Singer at the Filmfare Awards ceremony.
Khurrana was ranked 70th on Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list in 2013, with an estimated annual income of $25.8 million (US$320,000). He then worked on Rohan Sippy's Nautanki Saala with Kunaal Roy Kapur! (2013), based on the French film Après Vous (2005). Anupama Chopra thought Ayushmann Khurrana was "earnest" in it, but that his comedic work was overshadowed by Roy Kapur's. He also contributed two songs to the soundtrack of the film. A year later, as part of a three-film deal, Khurrana collaborated with Yash Raj Films on the romantic comedy Bewakoofiyaan (2014), co-starring Sonam Kapoor and Rishi Kapoor, about a young man who struggles to convince his girlfriend's father to approve of their marriage. Andy Webster of The New York Times panned the film's "strained, contrived humor," but praised Khurrana for "holding his own opposite [Rishi] Kapoor." Both Nautanki Saala and Bewakoofiyaan were commercial flops, as was his subsequent release, Hawaizaada (2015). He played the scientist Shivkar Bapuji Talpade in it, for which he lost weight and learned Marathi. In the same year, Khurrana wrote his autobiography Cracking the Code: My Journey to Bollywood with his wife, Tahira Kashyap.
Khurrana's career prospects improved when he co-starred in Sharat Katariya's romance Dum Laga Ke Haisha with newcomer Bhumi Pednekar (2015). It tells the story of an underachieving man who is forced to marry an overweight woman against his will, and it was his first film in which he did not sing any of the songs. The Hindu's Anuj Kumar praised him for accurately capturing his character's "diction and body language." Despite minimal promotion, the film was a commercial success, grossing more than 410 million (US$5.1 million) worldwide against a budget of 140 million (US$1.8 million).
Critical and commercial success in 2017-2020
After starring in the poorly received Meri Pyaari Bindu opposite Parineeti Chopra two years later, Khurrana's career advanced with his two other films released in 2017, the romantic-comedy dramas Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, both of which were commercially successful. The former, based on Nicolas Barreau's French novel The Ingredients of Love, starred him alongside Rajkummar Rao and Kriti Sanon as a writer caught up in a love triangle with a tomboyish girl and a timid salesman. According to NDTV's Saibal Chatterjee, Khurrana "convincingly mutates from a brooding jilted lover to a crooked manipulator who puts his own interests above everyone else's." In the latter, he played a newly engaged man suffering from erectile dysfunction opposite Pednekar. The film, a remake of the Tamil film Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013), was hoped to have a humorous take on mental and sexual problems faced by men, bringing wider attention to the topic. Rajeev Masand praised him for "investing the fellow with genuine likeability and an understated charm" in the film's handling of sexuality without being crude. For the latter film, Khurrana was nominated for a Filmfare Award for Best Actor.
Khurrana appeared in two of the year's highest-grossing Hindi films, both of which won National Film Awards. His first film role was in Sriram Raghavan's Andhadhun, a thriller co-starring Tabu and Radhika Apte in which he played a blind pianist who becomes unwillingly involved in a murder. After hearing about the role from casting director Mukesh Chhabra, he lobbied for it, and in preparation, he learned to play the piano and interacted with blind piano players. Mint's Udita Jhunjhunwala praised Khurrana's "taut performance that balances vulnerability with craftiness," while HuffPost's Ankur Pathak praised his "layered, no-holds-barred performance worth applauding." Andhadhun grossed $4.56 billion (US$57 million) worldwide, with the majority of the money coming from the Chinese box office, becoming Khurrana's highest-grossing film and one of Indian cinema's highest-grossing films. Following that, he appeared in Badhaai Ho, a comedy directed by Amit Ravindernath Sharma about a young man whose middle-aged mother becomes pregnant. Firstpost's Anna M. M. Vetticad praised his performance as "completely convincing" and praised him for choosing "to work in small films where the star is the story." It was a surprise blockbuster, grossing more than 2.21 billion (US$28 million) worldwide. Khurrana won the National Film Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his work in Andhadhun.
Khurrana's string of hugely successful and blockbuster films continued in 2019 with Article 15, Dream Girl, and Bala. The most recent was a crime thriller directed by Anubhav Sinha in which he played a good cop investigating a rape case. The film, which highlights caste discrimination in India, was inspired by a number of events, including the 2014 Badaun gang rape allegations and the 2016 Una flogging incident. In his film career, it was his first dark and intense character. Wendy Ide of The Guardian praised him for "combin[ing] soulful Bollywood heartthrob charisma with an arrestingly intense performance" in Dream Girl, in which he played a transgender man who speaks in a female voice while working at a call center, unwittingly attracting male attention. His "manic energy and believable Everyman persona," according to Scroll.in's Nandini Ramnath, was the film's highlight. The most recent was Stree director Amar Kaushik's satire on societal beauty standards, in which he played a young man who faces societal pressure due to premature balding. Due to the heavy layers of prosthetics on his head, he found it physically difficult to play the part. It was his second film in which he did not perform any of the songs. Khurrana, according to Rajeev Masand, "cuts a sympathetic figure as another not-instantly-likeable loser" and has "cornered the market when it comes to playing flawed, insecure men with confidence issues." He won another Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for Article 15 and was nominated for Best Actor for Bala at the ceremony. That same year, he was ranked 37th on Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list, with an estimated annual income of 305 million (US$3.8 million).
Khurrana actively sought out another mainstream film that would depict sexuality in a humorous light for his next project. He discovered it in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020), where he played a gay man who struggles to persuade his partner's family of their relationship. The Indian Express' Shubhra Gupta praised Khurrana for "allowing the film to be so much about" his lesser-known co-star Jitendra Kumar. The film's box office was impacted by the cinemas' closure due to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. He was next seen in Sircar's comedy-drama Gulabo Sitabo, in which he co-starred with Amitabh Bachchan. Because of the pandemic, the film premiered exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. According to The Times of India's Pallabi Dey Puryakastha, Khurrana's "body language tellingly portrays sadness and bitterness borne out of poverty."
2021–present
In Abhishek Kapoor's romantic comedy Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, Khurrana played a bodybuilder who falls in love with a trans woman in 2021. He then reunited with Sinha for the Anek project in Northeast India (2022). Khurrana then starred in Anubhuti Kashyap's medical drama Doctor G (2022), alongside Rakul Preet Singh and Shefali Shah, and in Aanand L. Rai's An Action Hero, directed by Anirudh Iyer. Despite favorable reviews, none of these films did well at the box office.
See also: Ayushmann Khuranna filmography
See also: List of awards and nominations received by Ayushmann Khurrana
Khurrana was born in Chandigarh. His father P. Khurrana is an astrologer and an author on the subject of astrology, whereas his mother Poonam is a housewife and she is of half-Burmese descent, and a qualified M.A. in Hindi.
While Khurrana remains busy with his work in Mumbai, his family still stays in Chandigarh. His brother Aparshakti Khurana is a radio jockey at Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM in Delhi and made his debut in the 2016 Aamir Khan-starrer film Dangal. The ambience of literature at home influenced Khurrana as well and he took writing as a hobby. He also maintains a blog where he writes in Hindi and it has been received very well by his admirers.
Khurrana is known for being very close to his family and wife, Tahira Kashyap, who has directed a critically acclaimed film Toffee. They are childhood friends and parents to a son and a daughter. Both Ayushmann and Tahira are followers of Nichiren Buddhism, helping them get through Tahira's cancer diagnosis.
| Year | Song | Album | Composer | Note(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | "Pani Da Rang" | Vicky Donor | Himself, Rochak Kohli | |
| "Pani Da Rang (Female)" | sung by Sukanya Purkayastha | |||
| 2013 | "Saddi Gali" | Nautanki Saala! | Duet with Neeti Mohan | |
| "Saddi Gali (Unplugged)" | ||||
| "Tu Hi Tu" | Mikey McCleary | |||
| "O Heeriye" | Single | Rochak Kohli | Features Rhea Chakraborty | |
| 2014 | "Khaamakhaan" | Bewakoofiyaan | Raghu Dixit | Duet with Neeti Mohan |
| "Mitti Di Khushboo" | Single | Rochak Kohli | Features Huma Qureshi | |
| 2015 | "Dil-E-Naadan" | Hawaizaada | Himself | Rendition of Mirza Ghalib's version |
| "Dil-E-Naadan (Reprise)" (Along with Shweta Subram) | ||||
| "Turram Khan" | Rochak Kohli | With Papon and Monali Thakur | ||
| "Moh Moh Ke Dhage (Reprise)" | Dum Laga Ke Haisha | Anu Malik | ||
| "Yahin Hoon Main" | Single | Rochak Kohli | Features Yami Gautam | |
| 2016 | "Ik Vaari" | Aparshakti Khurana | Features Aisha Sharma | |
| 2017 | "Haareya (Rock version)" | Meri Pyaari Bindu | Sachin–Jigar | |
| "Orrey Mon" | Single | Upal Sengupta | Features Ritabhari Chakraborty | |
| "Nazm Nazm" | Bareilly Ki Barfi | Arko | ||
| "Kanha (Unplugged)" | Shubh Mangal Savdhan | Tanishk-Vayu | ||
| 2018 | "Bachpan" | Toffee | Abhinav Bhansal | |
| "Aap Se Milkar (Reprise)" | Andhadhun | Amit Trivedi | ||
| "Naina Da Kya Kasoor" | ||||
| "Chan Kitthan" | Single | Rochak Kohli | Features Pranitha Subhash | |
| "Nain Na Jodeen" | Badhaai Ho | |||
| 2019 | "Intezaar (Reprise)" | Article 15 | Anurag Saikia | |
| "Ik Mulakat (Reprise)" | Dream Girl | Meet Bros | ||
| "Ab Teri Baari (with Naezy)" | Single | Clinton Cerejo | ||
| 2020 | "Mere Liye Tum Kaafi Ho" | Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan | Tanishk-Vayu | |
| "Arrey Pyaar Kar Le" | Tanishk Bagchi | |||
| 2021 | "Kinni Soni He" | Quaranteen Crush | Sameer Kaushal | Part of series, Feels Like Ishq |
| "Maafi" | Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui | Sachin-Jigar | ||
| 2022 | "O Sweetie Sweetie" | Doctor G | Amit Trivedi |
| Bio/Wiki | |
|---|---|
| Real Name | Nishant Khurana [1]Quint |
| Nickname | Ayush |
| Professions | Actor, Singer, Writer |
| Famous Role | "Vicky Arora" in film Vicky Donor (2012) |
| Physical Stats & More | |
| Height (approx.) | in centimeters- 175 cm in meters- 1.75 m in feet inches- 5’ 9” |
| Weight (approx.) | in kilograms- 70 kg in pounds- 154 lbs |
| Body Measurements (approx.) | - Chest: 40 inches - Waist: 32 inches - Biceps: 12 inches |
| Eye Colour | Black |
| Hair Colour | Black |
| Personal Life | |
| Date of Birth | 14 September 1984 |
| Age (as in 2022) | 38 Years |
| Birthplace | Chandigarh, India |
| Zodiac sign | Virgo |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Hometown | Chandigarh, India |
| School | St. John's High School, Chandigarh |
| College/University | DAV College, Chandigarh School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh |
| Educational Qualification(s) | Majored in English literature Master's degree in Mass Communication |
| Debut | Film: Vicky Donor (2012) TV: MTV Roadies Season 2 (2004, as a contestant) |
| Religion | Hinduism |
| Caste | Khatri |
| Food Habit | Non-Vegetarian |
| Address | Panchkula- House No. 1109, Sector 2, Opp. Bal Niketan School, Panchkula, Haryana 134109 Mumbai- First floor flat at Anmol Pride apartments on S V Road, Goregaon (West) |
| Hobbies | Singing, Playing Guitar, Writing Poems |
| Awards, Honours, Achievements | 2012- Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for 'Vicky Donor' 2013- International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) for "Star debut of the Year" for 'Vicky Donor' 2019- National Film Award for Best Actor for the film 'Andhadhun' |
| Girls, Affairs, and More | |
| Marital Status | Married |
| Affairs/Girlfriends | Tahira Khurrana (Professor and Writer) |
| Marriage Date | Year- 2011 |
| Family | |
| Wife/Spouse | Tahira Khurrana (2011-present) |
| Children | Son- Virajveer (Born: 2 January 2012) Daughter- Varushka (Born: 21 April 2014) |
| Parents | Father- P. Khurrana (Astrologer and Politician) Mother- Poonam Khurrana |
| Siblings | Brother- Aparshakti Khurrana (Radio Jockey and Actor) Sister- None |
| Favourite Things | |
| Food(s) | Rajma-Chawla, Chicken Curry, Rasgullas, Imarti, Falooda-Kulfi, Halwa |
| Actor(s) | Amitabh Bachchan and Ranveer Singh |
| Actresses | Madhuri Dixit and Deepika Padukone |
| Film(s) | Tezaab, Shakti, Deewar, Agneepath, Hum |
| Singer | Chris Martin (Coldplay) |
| Colour(s) | White, Blue |
| Director(s) | Dibakar Banerjee, Shoojit Sircar, Sharad Katari, Rajkumar Hirani, Imtiaz Ali |
| Sport | Cricket |
| Perfume | Bvlgari Aqua |
| Destination | New York |
| Style Quotient | |
| Car Collection | Audi |
| Money Factor | |
| Salary (approx.) | Rs. 2-3 Crore/Film |
| Net Worth (approx.) | $6 million |
