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Kareena Kapoor, also credited by her married name Kareena Kapoor Khan, is an Indian actress who has appeared in over 50 Bollywood films. Kapoor made her acting debut opposite Abhishek Bachchan in the 2000 drama Refugee, for which she earned a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. The following year, she appeared in five films, including the romance Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai, the thriller Ajnabee, and the ensemble melodrama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.... The latter emerged as the highest-grossing Bollywood film in overseas market to that point, and the success of these films established her in Bollywood. However, she followed this with roles in a series of commercial failures, including Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (2002) and Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (2003), in which she was perceived to play variations of her character in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham....
Kapoor portrayed a prostitute in the 2004 drama Chameli, which proved to be a turning point in her career, earning her a Special Performance Award at Filmfare. That same year, she played a Muslim woman affected by the 2002 Gujarat riots in Govind Nihalani's political drama Dev, and two years later, she played the Desdemona character in Omkara (2006), an adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello from director Vishal Bhardwaj. She won two Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for these films. In 2007, Kapoor played a loquacious Sikh girl in Imtiaz Ali's Jab We Met, a commercially successful comedy-drama co-starring Shahid Kapoor, for which she won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.
In 2009, Kapoor played a medical student in Rajkumar Hirani's comedy-drama 3 Idiots (2009), co-starring Aamir Khan, which emerged as the highest-grossing Indian film to that point. The following year, she starred with Kajol in the drama We Are Family (2010), winning the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress, and took on the lead role in the lucrative third installment of the Golmaal franchise. In 2011, she played the leading lady in two top-grossing Hindi films—the action drama Bodyguard and the superhero film Ra.One. Among her four releases in 2012, the romantic comedy Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu saw Kapoor play a free-spirited hairdresser. She also received praise for playing a troubled actress in the drama Heroine (2012) and a mysterious prostitute in the thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within (2012). Following an appearance in the poorly received romantic comedy Gori Tere Pyaar Mein (2013), Kapoor decreased her workload for the next two years, taking on smaller parts of the love-interest in androcentric films such as Singham Returns (2014) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015); the latter ranks among Indian cinema's highest earners. This changed in 2016 when she starred as an ambitious businessperson in Ki & Ka, a satire on gender stereotypes, and as a doctor running a drug rehabilitation center in the crime drama Udta Punjab, both of which were critically and financially successful.