Kareena Randhir Kapoor was born on 21st September 1980 in Mumbai. Her father is the Punjabi Randhir Kapoor, an actor and her mother is the Sindhi Babitha . Her parents divorced when she was quite young. Her older sister is Karishma Kapoor, an actress. Her family tree reads like the who’s who of Bollywood. Her great grandfather is Prithviraj Kapoor and her grandfather is Raj Kapoor. Her uncles are Rishi Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor, while her maternal aunt is Sadhana.
Kareena did her schooling partly in Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai and later in Welham’s Girls Boarding School in Dehra Dun. She was in Harvard briefly to study Information Technology and Microcomputers. On returning back to India, she studied law for a year at the Government Law College at Churchgate, after which she enrolled in Kishore Namit Acting School.
She was dating Shahid Kapoor since 2004 but they broke up just when they landed their first hit together in Jab We Met. She is now dating actor Saif Ali Khan.
She is involved in several humanitarian causes. In 2005, she joined NDTV by visiting the jawans in Rajasthan . She was part of the Marco Ricci Each One Reach One benefit concert, for World Youth Peace Summit. She donated the prize money she won in Kaun Banega Crorepathi in 2007 to St.Anthony’s Old Age Home and Mount Mary’s Bandra. In 2007, she appeared in Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hai? The money she won was donated to St.Anthony’s Old Age Home.
Kaho Na Pyaar Hai was supposed to be her debut but she walked out of it and instead starred with Abhishek Bacchan in J.P.Datta’s Refugee in 2000, in which she played Naaz, a Bangladeshi girl who falls in love with Refugee. This won her the Filmfare Best Debut award. In 2001, she worked with Tusshar Kapoor in Mujhe Kuch Kehna Hai which was one of the successes of the year. Yaadein did not do well. Her fiery Kaurwaki act in the epic Asoka with Shah Rukh Khan won her a nomination for the Filmfare Best Actress award. Her fourth film was the multi-starrer Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham in which she played the part of the haughty yet adorable Pooh. The film was her biggest commercial success. The next two years saw her in a few films like Mujhse Dosti Karoge, Khushi, Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon for which the response ranged from flops to moderate successes.
Just when you thought Pooh was as far as she could go, she started experimenting by portraying different characters in her films that released in 2004 and it paid off. She stepped into the shoes of a sex worker in Chameli with Rahul Bose, earning a Filmfare Special Performance award. The other critically acclaimed film was Dev with Amitabh Bacchan, in which she played Aaliya , a victim in the communal riots in Gujarat. She won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance. She played the villainous Neha Mehra in Fida. She had three releases in 2005: Bewafa, Kyun Ki" and Dosti: Friends Forever, of which the latter did well in the United Kingdom.
The year 2006 saw her in a thriller 36 China Town and a comedy Chup Chup Ke which were average performers at the box office. It was her role of Dolly in Omkara that clinched the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance. The film was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello and Dolly was based on Desdemona. She also appeared in an item number in Farhan Akhtar’s Don, which was originally done by Helen.
Imtiaz Ali’s romcom Jab We Met with Shahid Kapoor\ was a runaway hit in 2007, her portrayal of the spontaneous and fun-loving Geet was applauded. She won the Filmfare Best Actress award for that role. In 2008, she came out with Tashan with her new boyfriend Saif Ali Khan and her size zero figure but that failed to live up to the hype. She has lent her voice to Laila in the animation flick Roadside Romeo and is part of Golmaal Returns, a sequel to the comedy hit Golmaal.
Some of the films Kareena’s fans can look forward to in 2009 are Main Aur Mrs.Khanna with Salman and Sohail Khan, Kambakth Ishq with Akshay Kumar, Three Idiots with Madhavan and Aamir Khan, Milenge Milenge with Shahid Kapoor.