Kiara Advani

Alia Advani (born 31 July 1992), known professionally as Kiara Advani ([kɪˈjaːra əɽˈʋaːɳi]), is an Indian actress who predominantly works in Hindi films. After making her debut in Fugly (2014), she played the real-life character of Sakshi Rawat, a hotel manager and cricketer M. S. Dhoni’s wife, in Neeraj Pandey’s critically and commercially successful sports biopic M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016).

She achieved critical acclaim for her performance in the Netflix anthology film Lust Stories (2018). She gained further success starring in films like the Telugu political thriller Bharat Ane Nenu (2018), the Hindi romance Kabir Singh (2019), Good Newwz (2019), Laxmii (2020) and Shershaah (2021).

Kiara was born to Jagdeep Advani, a Sindhi Hindu businessman and Genevieve Jaffrey, a teacher whose father was a Muslim from Lucknow and whose mother was a British Christian.[4][5][6]

Born as Alia Advani, she changed her first name to Kiara prior to the release of her first film, Fugly, in 2014. Her choice of the name was inspired from Priyanka Chopra’s character Kiara in the film Anjaana Anjaani. She has stated that it was Salman Khan’s suggestion to change her name, as Alia Bhatt was already an established actress.[7] [8]

The elder of two siblings, Advani has a younger brother, Mishaal. She is also related to several celebrities through her maternal family. Actors Ashok Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey are her step-great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively, whereas model Shaheen Jaffrey is her aunt. Her mother Genevieve Advani’s step-mother is Bharti Ganguly who is the daughter of Ashok Kumar.[3][verification needed] In that respect, actress Anuradha Patel, Bharti’s daughter from her first marriage, is her step-aunt.