Sidharth Malhotra

Sidharth Malhotra (; born 16 January 1985) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi films. He began his career as a fashion model, but left it to pursue an acting career. He made his acting debut with a minor role in the television serial Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan in 2009 before assisting director Karan Johar on the 2010 film My Name Is Khan. He had his first lead role in Johar’s teen film Student of the Year (2012).

Malhotra went on to star in such commercially successful films as Hasee Toh Phasee (2014), Ek Villain (2014), and Kapoor & Sons (2016). Following a career downturn, he gained praise for starring as Vikram Batra in the war film Shershaah (2021), earning a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.

Early life

Malhotra was born and raised in Delhi, India into a Punjabi Hindu family, to Sunil, a former captain in the Merchant Navy, and Rimma Malhotra, a homemaker. He was schooled at Delhi’s Don Bosco School and Naval Public School, and graduated from Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi.  At the age of 18, he began modelling. Although he was successful, he decided to quit after four years because he was dissatisfied with the profession.

Career

Debut and breakthrough (2012–2015)

Malhotra had his first acting role in 2009 in the television serial Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan, in which he played the small role of Jaichand. Interested in further pursuing an acting career, he successfully auditioned for a film to be directed by Anubhav Sinha. However, the film was shelved, following which he worked as an assistant director to Karan Johar on the 2010 film My Name Is Khan. Eventually, in 2012, he made his acting debut with Johar’s teen drama Student of the Year alongside co-debutantes Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt. He was cast as Abhimanyu Singh, a scholarship student of limited financial means, who competes with his wealthy best friend Rohan Nanda (Dhawan) to win an annual school championship. Film critic Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN considered his performance to be “earnest”, adding that he had “a pleasing presence.” Student of the Year was a financial success, grossing ₹1.09 billion (US$14 million) Worldwide.

Following a year-long absence from the screen, similar to that of co-stars Bhatt and Dhawan who had their second releases after him, Malhotra next starred opposite Parineeti Chopra and Adah Sharma in the 2014 romantic comedy Hasee Toh Phasee, which tells the love story of a scientist and an under-confident aspiring businessman. Mohar Basu of Koimoi found his performance to be “restrained” and described his chemistry with Chopra as “lively” and “heartfelt”; Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV praised his screen presence and compared it to the early work of Amitabh Bachchan. The film performed moderately well at the box office, with global revenues of ₹620 million (US$7.8 million).

Malhotra’s second release of 2014 was the Mohit Suri-directed romantic thriller Ek Villain, which saw him portray Guru Divekar, a hardened criminal whose terminally-ill wife Aisha Verma (Shraddha Kapoor) is murdered by a serial killer Rakesh Mahadkar (Riteish Deshmukh). Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express reviewed his performance as “watchable even if he has a hard time doing menace — he just seems so nice and wholesome all the time, even when he is crunching bones.” The film became a commercial success with worldwide revenues of over ₹1.7 billion (US$21 million). The box office performance of the film established him as one of the new generation of actors of Hindi Cinema.

Malhotra next appeared in a 2015 remake of the 2011 American film Warrior, titled Brothers, directed by Karan Malhotra and co-starring Akshay Kumar, Jacqueline Fernandez and Jackie Shroff. The film received negative reviews and under-performed at the box office, but was noted for its performances, particularly Malhotra’s and his chemistry with co-star Akshay Kumar.

Career fluctuations (2016–2020)

Malhotra’s next release, the Shakun Batra-directed family drama Kapoor & Sons, proved to be a critical and commercial success, grossing ₹ 1.53 billion worldwide. Featuring an ensemble cast including Rishi Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah, Rajat Kapoor, Fawad Khan, and Alia Bhatt, the film tells the story of two brothers of contrasting personalities (Malhotra and Khan) who return home to their dysfunctional family after their grandfather suffers from a cardiac arrest. A reviewer for India Today thought that Malhotra was overshadowed by Khan in the film, though Namrata Joshi of The Hindu wrote that “he holds his own with his solid presence and vulnerable glances”.

Malhotra followed the success of Kapoor & Sons with a starring role in the romantic comedy Baar Baar Dekho alongside Katrina Kaif, as a mathematician who travels in time. The film was produced by Karan Johar under the banner of Dharma Productions and Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani under the banner of Excel Entertainment. Directed by Nitya Mehra, the film opened to mixed to negative reviews from the critics and flopped at the box office. Later in 2017, he starred in dual roles for the first time in the action comedy A Gentleman with Jacqueline Fernandez from the writer-director duo Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K., which was produced by Fox Star Studios and released on 25 August 2017 worldwide; although highly anticipated, it opened to a poor reception. Both the films underperformed at the box office.

Abhay Chopra’s 2017 remake of the 1969 mystery film Ittefaq starred Malhotra opposite Sonakshi Sinha. Released on 3 November 2017, the film held an approval rating of 90% from Rotten Tomatoes based on 5 reviews but failed at the box office with a lifetime collection of ₹ 500 million.

Neeraj Pandey’s Aiyaary, released on 16 February 2018, featured Malhotra along with Manoj Bajpayee and Rakul Preet Singh. The film opened on a note of ₹ 30 Million and collected ₹ 183.1 million, eventually emerging as a mediocre success. Bollywood Hungama, in a negative review said that “On the whole, Aiyaary misses the mark and is a huge letdown on the account of its flawed script and the lengthy run time” Malhotra’s two releases of 2019 were poorly received by critics and audiences alike and were deemed box office failures. He first starred in the romantic-comedy Jabariya Jodi, his second collaboration with Parineeti. The film was released on 9 August 2019 to negative reviews and was considered a flop. His second appearance was in Milap Milan Zaveri’s masala actioner Marjaavaan, co-starring Tara Sutaria, Rakul Preet Singh and Riteish Deshmukh, which released on 15 November 2019.

Shershaah and beyond (2021–present)

In 2021, Malhotra had a lead role in the biographical-action film Shershaah, based on the life of the Indian army officer, Param Vir Chakra (PVC) Vikram Batra. After several delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film premiered on 12 August 2021 on Amazon Prime Video. It received mixed reviews from critics. However, praise was directed at Malhotra’s performance in particular. Shershaah was the most watched Indian film on the platform in India at the time of its release.

Malhotra’s sole film release of 2022 was the fantasy comedy Thank God, co-starring Ajay Devgn, which failed commercially. He will next star in Mission Majnu, a spy thriller which will stream on Netflix. Malhotra will also star in the action film Yodha, and in Indian Police Force, a web series for Amazon Prime Video from director Rohit Shetty.

Other work

In 2013, Malhotra collaborated with PETA for a campaign to spread awareness about dogs sterilisation. Later that year, he participated in a stage show in Hong Kong alongside Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt and performed at a charity event with Dhawan, Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur, Shraddha Kapoor and Huma Qureshi to raise funds for the flood-affected victims of Uttarakhand. In August 2016, he performed in various cities of America for the “Dream Team 2016” tour, alongside Johar, the actors Dhawan, Bhatt, Roy Kapur, Katrina Kaif, Parineeti Chopra, and the singer Badshah.

In the media

• 2014: Times of India’s Most Desirable Men of 2013 #11
• 2013: Times of India’s Most Desirable Men of 2012 #12
• 2013: The Times of India Hotlist Most Promising Newcomer 2012 :#3
• 2013: The Times of India 50 Handsome Hunks in 100 years of Indian Cinema :#27

Filmography

Films

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref
2010	My Name Is Khan	—	Assistant director
2012	Student of the Year	Abhimanyu Singh
2014	Hasee Toh Phasee	Nikhil Bharadwaj
	Ek Villain	Guru Divekar
2015	Brothers	Monty Fernandes
2016	Kapoor & Sons	Arjun Kapoor
	Baar Baar Dekho	Jai Varma
2017	A Gentleman	Gaurav Kapoor/Rishi Purohit	Also singer for song “Bandook Meri Laila”
	Ittefaq	Vikram Sethi
2018	Aiyaary	Major Jai Bakshi
2019	Jabariya Jodi	Abhay Singh
	Marjaavaan	Raghuvendra Nath
2021	Shershaah	Vikram Batra/Vishal Batra
2022	Thank God	Ayaan Kapoor
2023	Mission Majnu	Amandeep Ajitpal Singh / Tariq Ali	Completed
	Yodha	TBA	Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2009	Dharti Ka Veer Yodha Prithviraj Chauhan	Jaichand
2023	Indian Police Force	Kabir Malik	Filming

Music videos