What makes Kareena Kapoor Khan unstoppable

THE TEASER OF Crew featured Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan as two flight attendants in the galley of an aircraft. Kareena is dabbing on some makeup, and Tabu teases her, “It’s foundation, not a time machine.” Kareena responds by mimicking Tabu like a petulant child. The laugh-out-loud moment will go down in history as one of Kareena’s finest scenes ever, right up there with her Geet mouthing, “Main apni favourite hoon”, in Imtiaz Ali’s iconic 2007 romance Jab We Met.

Of course, her impeccable comic timing is commendable, but the literary device of dramatic irony is unmissable here: This scene is perhaps as far from who Kareena is as an actor or a woman today. At 43, she embarked on two films sans makeup. The first is her streaming debut, Sujoy Ghosh’s murder ‘howdunnit’ Jaane Jaan (2023) for Netflix. The second is The Buckingham Murders, also a thriller loosely inspired by Kate Winslet’s Mare of Easttown (series, 2021). The Hansal Mehta film, which did the rounds of festivals last year and is due for a theatrical release in India this September, marks her debut as producer.

Her last release, Crew (2024), on the other hand, is a rollicking, frolicking funfest, a heist film with an all-female star cast. Kareena stars alongside Tabu and Kriti Sanon. All three actors are known for their immense beauty as well as acting chops (Sanon picked up her first National Award last year). The film, produced by Anil Kapoor Film & Communication (AKFC) Network and Balaji Motion Pictures, is a comedy that sees three flight attendants turn unwitting con artists. AKFC Network is helmed by father-daughter duo―Anil and Rhea Kapoor, and Balaji by mother-daughter duo―Shobha and Ekta Kapoor.

At the time of publishing this story, Crew had crossed the Rs150-crore mark in worldwide box-office collections. It is only the seventh Hindi film, and the only female-fronted film, to have made it to the Rs100-crore club this year.

I am meeting Kareena at one of the Bandra apartments she shares with her husband, actor Saif Ali Khan. The two own multiple apartments in this building, along with a tasteful duplex home. They have just moved into another beautiful home, spread over three stories, in a building down the road. It also has a terrace with a swimming pool, but the actor couple guards their private spaces fiercely.

This one serves as their office, and there is no chance of having any privacy with the star. Her entourage is about us, comprising her manager and mighty efficient go-to girl Naina Sawhney, her stylist, her hair and makeup team and various assistants. We are also shooting the cover for this issue, and I end up spending most of the day with Kareena. Her younger son, Jehangir, 3, has just returned from playschool and is trading lunch for a lollipop, even as he sits on his mum’s lap for cuddles while she does her hair.

Like in her films, Kareena is effortless in person, too. She manages everything with a smile and a quip, making a top-notch career―without a break in between for marriage or kids―seem like a day at Hyde Park (London is among her favourite holiday spots). I would like to say I know a few successful women who have balanced work and family with such ease but, hand on heart, I don’t. Kareena Kapoor Khan is that rare bird, that woman who, unusually, does have it all.

Twenty-four years as a leading lady, little did Kareena know as a young 20-year-old debutante (she made her debut with Abhishek Bachchan in 2000 with J.P. Dutta’s Refugee) that her career would be this long and this thriving. “I have to agree it is a rarity in this industry,” she admits. “Today I don’t feel any less than my male counterparts.” When female actors took a gap in their careers for marriage or maternity, Kareena never went anywhere. “What does ‘comeback’ mean? Male stars don’t have comebacks, why do only female stars do? I am married and have two children but so do a lot of male actors in the industry,” she says.

Kareena has acted in nearly 70 films in 24 years. In some years, she has had five to six releases in 12 months. “That is because when I started out I had this need and this greed to be in every film,” she says. “We just did a lot of films in one go. By the time I turned 35, this began to taper out. Then I only wanted to do what I wanted to do. I began to give my marriage more time, and I chose to have children, too. Now I am happy with two films a year and a holiday every two months.”

What does she attribute this longevity to? Surely her mother Babita, a well-regarded actor in her time, and her sister Karisma, who had been a numero uno actor for well over a decade in the 1990s, held great influence. “Yes, but I have always believed in being as real to my audience as I can be. I take stardom very lightly; I have just seen too many people come and go. I am equally serious about my success and failure,” she says. “Acting is my passion and I just want to keep working. When you see me on screen, you need to know that I am enjoying doing this.”

What a year she has had, I tell her. In just a span of 12 months, she has had three releases and will release another potential blockbuster movie―Rohit Shetty’s cop universe franchise Singham Again. Now this is superstar status: I ask her if she prefers to be called ‘Kareena ji’ or ‘Bebo ji’, after her famous nickname. “Not allowing ‘ji’, my audience has to connect with me,” she insists.

Kareena tells me she is excited and happy the audience received Crew the way they made it. “When I read the script, I told Rhea this film has blockbuster potential, I knew it would smash the box office,” she says. “When we were shooting, I knew it was going to be huge. I have done so many films; by day two, I know exactly how this film is going to pan out. All of us knew we wanted to give our best to each shot here.” She says she especially loved her character Jasmine Kohli. “Who doesn’t love a gold-digger with a heart of gold?” she says, smiling. “Or, as you have called her―‘Hustle Rani’―that’s a compliment. It’s 2024, you have to make things happen for yourself.”

Rhea says the first person she cast for Crew was Kareena. “The intention was to make a fun film about three unlike con artists, it just so happens they happen to be women,” she says. “When this film was being written and when I heard the first dialogues, it was clear to me only Kareena could play this role. I don’t know what I would have done if she had said no to this part.”

Jaane Jaan holds an equally special place in the actor’s heart; Kareena says she moved the needle a little with this one. Starring along with Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Varma, Kareena slipped into a role that was completely driven by the character. “With OTT, people are watching you from their bedrooms, so it is much more up-close. I knew I wanted my Netflix debut to be special,” she says. “Sujoy (Ghosh, director) and I had wanted to work together for a decade. I knew I wanted to be in this film.”

Ghosh agrees. “I had gone to her with so many things, and every time she wouldn’t like something she would throw me out,” he says, half-joking. “But it has to be like that, we are both serving a film. This is a project both of us believed in.” Ghosh says Kareena was his Maya D’Souza right from the start. “I saw the character in her,” he says. “She has certain qualities like Maya―she is a working mum who juggles everything and keeps harmony and balance. Kareena was pitch-perfect. Yes, she is a star, but I needed an actress. And, Kareena is a tremendous actress. I had a hunch of what she could do, but what she brought to the table was just mind-blowing.”

One of Kareena’s greatest strengths has been how she has balanced her glamorous roles with more ‘serious’ ones, as it were. “My acting was always outshone by a Poo or a Geet,” she says, of perhaps her most famous characters in mainstream films―Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001) and Jab We Met. “The actor in me has never been taken seriously. I feel people are discovering me as an artiste now. At nearly 44, I can also give a huge blockbuster. And there is a lot more where that comes from.”

Ghosh says he had approached Kareena first and then the other two. “Jaideep and Vijay were over the moon, and sometimes the fanboy in them would come out, too,” he says, smiling. “But honestly, they all brought their A-game to acting. Kareena plays it like everyone else is a better actor, but she is an effing ace of an actor; she is just too good.”

Both Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit were consummate actors, known for romance as well as drama, but they also excelled at comedy. Karisma had a dream run with comedy in her booming David Dhawan phase. Kareena’s funny bone is evident in Crew. Was an out-and-out comedy role tough? “I like comedy. But like a dal or a chicken curry, you have to cook the lines really well. It is easier to make an audience cry, but not laugh,” she says. “Most of the characters I choose embody a human spirit.” So, who is closer to her personality: Jasmine or Geet? “Right now, it’s ‘Hustle Rani’.”

A COUPLE OF FILM producers I spoke to agreed to give me some numbers on the condition of anonymity. They said that apart from Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt, both of whom charge Rs15 crore a film, there are just two female actors who are in the Rs10 crore to Rs15 crore bracket. Kareena is one of them. “Whatever you say is right,” says Kareena, laughing. “If it is a big commercial film, then your figures are less. But I am very clear that I don’t choose films for money. I will do a film for much less if I like the role.”

Coming up is one of her famous big-ticket extravaganzas―she pairs up with Devgn as his missus for the third of the Singham series, and this will be her ninth film with him. “I am really fortunate to have worked so often with Ajay,” she says. “I have known him even before we started working, as he has worked with my sister, too. He is such a solid actor, plus one who I am actually friends with. Working with him is a riot as we have so much fun. I have great admiration for his understanding of cinema.”

Singham Again also stars Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Tiger Shroff and Arjun Kapoor. How did they get any work done with an ensemble like that? “Arjun didn’t let us work. He is such a good friend; it is hard to focus when he is around. But this film is going to be the Indian Avengers, you just watch,” she says, smiling.

Devgn is all praise for her, too. “Kareena has been a part of some very important films in my career―Omkara (2006) and the Golmaal (Returns; 2008) and Singham (Returns; 2014) franchises,” he says. “What I have grown to like about her is her focus as an actor and her single-mindedness as a superstar. On the set, she is vivacious and friendly. Once the camera switches on, she is a different animal; she wears blinkers. Filmmakers favour us because we are a good box-office bet. The good thing about Bebo is that she hasn’t changed, she is still the life of the party.”

Other than Devgn, she has also had massive hits with Shah Rukh Khan (Ra.One, 2011), Salman Khan (Bajrangi Bhaijaan, 2015), Aamir Khan (3 Idiots, 2009) and Akshay Kumar (Good Newwz, 2019).

Kareena is also a favourite for ad campaigns and has endorsed several brands through her career. She currently endorses more than 15 products, including Puma, Prega News, Globus, Magnum ice cream, Tira and Goibibo. According to a report in exchangeformedia.com, Kareena charges Rs6 crore for a campaign. With some brands, like Lakme and Puma, the actor has long-term contracts with an annual fee. Kareena was Lakme’s brand ambassador from 2011 to 2022.

She came on to Instagram very late, at first insisting social media was not for her. But early in 2020, she was signed on as brand ambassador for sportswear giant Puma, with which she made her Instagram debut. Her social media game is now a mix of endorsements as well as a beautifully curated selection of pictures from her family’s holidays or private moments. She has also recently invested in two companies―a Korean skincare brand called Quench and an organic farm products company called Pluckk. She has co-authored two books―The Style Diary of a Bollywood Diva and Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Pregnancy Bible.

Kareena has long been a favourite of the paparazzi. Despite making all her red-carpet saris and gowns look more glamorous, it is her everyday avatar of oversized t-shirts and jeans, with a coffee cup and chappals in tow, that has become her signature. “I may just end up coming like that on a red carpet soon,” she says, laughing. “I mean, I enjoy fashion, too, but I am not majorly into brands or labels.” She says she shares a tricky relationship with the paps. “I am open and quite cool with them, and I think they respect me, too. But I have no problem being photographed in jeans. No one signed up for that level of fame,” she says. “But on my social media, I just want to be real; my fans must know I am being honest.”

KAREENA FAMOUSLY hails from Bollywood blue blood. Her grandfather was Raj Kapoor and his father Prithviraj Kapoor―they are literally the first family of actors in Hindi cinema. But Karisma and Kareena were the first women in the family to pursue acting. Raj Kapoor’s brothers (Shammi and Shashi Kapoor) and sons (Randhir, Rishi and Rajiv) became actors, but his daughters (Ritu Nanda and Rima Jain) were not permitted to work. Neither did the daughters-in-law of the family, be it Shammi’s wife Geeta Bali, Randhir’s wife Babita or Rishi’s wife Neetu Singh.

“It was especially tough for Lolo (Karisma). My mum had to stop working, as did Neetu auntie, but then mindsets were changing,” she says. “My grandfather had passed away. My father (Randhir) wasn’t working much at the time. Chintu uncle (Rishi Kapoor) was a big star, but none of the other men had much work. My father told Lolo she could act if she wanted to, but he wasn’t going to make any calls for her. She had to start in the south, with Harish in a D. Ramanaidu film.”

Was there any chatter when Karisma started films, that too when she was just 15? “There was chatter because Lolo had resurrected a home where no one was working for a while,” she says. “Karisma became the first female Kapoor who became this big sensation. She carried forward the legacy of the family. I came much later, and it was easier for me. Then came Ranbir (Rishi’s son) even later, in 2006-2007.”

Apparently, Kareena was a good student, too. She had enrolled for summer school at Harvard University, and had even signed up to study law at Mumbai’s Government Law College. “I enjoyed my time at Harvard; it made me more worldly. But the acting bug took over,” she says.

Kareena did a streak of commercial films when she arrived on the scene. But just four years into her career, she played a prostitute in Sudhir Mishra’s Chameli (2003). The following year, she played a Muslim woman victimised by the Gujarat riots in Govind Nihalani’s Dev. Nihalani was hesitant in casting her but she told him his previous films Tamas (1988) and Ardh Satya (1983) were her cinematic goalposts. When the film was done, he gave an interview saying that she was perfect, much wiser than the roles she was known for. “I had oil in my hair and no makeup for Dev,” she recalls. “At the time the difference between commercial cinema and art-house cinema was clearly demarcated. But I wanted to prove myself as an actor. I was a glamorous girl but I wanted compliments for my acting. I had to pick up the phone and call Govind ji. I wanted to show I was here for the long haul. That’s the fighting spirit I had that young.”

All her directors say Kareena is a natural, a spontaneous actor. She is known to not rehearse and still have her shots approved in one take. “Putting pen to paper frazzles me. I see Saif rehearse and how much he enjoys it. But it throws me off. The only thing I need to know are my lines. I need to know them backwards; I need to know them in the car, in the bathroom. I need to be able to sing a song with my lines. When I come on the set, I have already become the part. That is my process,” she says. “I am happy to improvise with other actors. But I can’t be so serious. I think work should be fun. You are taking me away from my two beautiful children and my husband for 12-18 hours a day, I want to make it fun.”

The actor married Saif Ali Khan in 2012, after they started dating on the sets of their 2008 film Tashan. Kareena had famously gone down to the dress size of zero for this film, an almost gamine body type. Kareena and Saif were the Posh and Becks of India, sweetly called ‘Saifeena’ by their fans. “That was such a different time, people gave us so much love,” she remembers. They had kept their relationship quiet for a while, but appeared together, hand in hand, at Manish Malhotra’s fashion show at Lakme Fashion Week. I was in the audience and the front row was peppered with movie stars. We were all waiting for something, no one knew what, but the show wouldn’t begin. Suddenly, the most-talked-about lovers appeared in a hall that went silent with dropped jaws. Saif and Kareena wore jeans and t-shirts, and casually took their seats. They were in all the newspapers the next day. “I remember that,” she says, smiling. “We are still the same, we just have more responsibilities now. We think of ourselves as a unit now. In fact, I think we are much closer.”

Marriage has changed her “for the better”, she says. But being married to an actor has its challenges, she says. “We fight to make time for each other,” she says. “We don’t see each other for days. Often, the kids only see one of us at a time. We also argue about the air-conditioning temperature―he wants it at 16 degrees and I want it at 20.” Kareena claims she always asks him for professional advice. “He does ask me, too, but I don’t know if he takes it. I critique all his films, but he hasn’t watched Crew yet,” she says.

KAREENA NEVER takes her name, fame or fans for granted. She knows celebrities can come and go just as easily, and she wants to deserve her spot under the arc lights. Being a Kapoor is just by the way for her, and so is being a begum. Saif’s family hails from the Bhopal and Pataudi royal families, but Kareena insists she is just a working woman. She relies on her talent alone, and her “hustle” to earn her laurels. She toils in her films as well as her public profile. We see her sweating at the gym, or at yoga class, playing a happy mum to her sons, dressing up in the finest fashions to earn her style stripes. She is a consummate professional, steers clear of controversy or conflict, and maintains a warm friendship with and commands respect from all her co-stars.

Rhea concurs. “Kareena Kapoor Khan has got it all because she values it all, every minute of the day. She never lets her guard down, in her professional life or her personal life. The hardest thing is to maintain fame, to stay there, and that’s the hardest thing about being Kareena. Honestly, she is one of a kind.”

Kareena attributes it to ambition. “If I was not ambitious, I would not have been at this point in my career,” she says. “I have a healthy appetite for ambition. I have my goals, but they are performance-oriented, not price-oriented. I am also equally passionate about my family, my friends and my holidays, too.”

What does work-life balance mean to her? “You know, I was pregnant with Jehangir when we were shooting for Lal Singh Chaddha (2022). Saif and Taimur (older son, age 7) accompanied me to New Delhi for the shoot, because it was during Covid and they knew they didn’t want to leave me alone,” she recalls. “Their support made me so comfortable. I honestly look at work as this is what I want to do. But even if a big film comes to me when Saif is shooting or when the kids have holidays, I won’t take it. At the end of the day, I do want to have it all.”

Her downtime is equally important to her, and Kareena and her family take off on a holiday every two months or so. “I have to do it, I just feel like I need to get away. There are things I do for myself and there are things I do for my husband and kids,” she avers. “Even Aamir Khan knows this is how I work; we have found our balance in the three magical films we have done together,” she says, laughing. She is known to not shoot in the last week of December―it is dedicated to her favourite destination, Gstaad in Switzerland. “It isn’t just the last week of December, it’s from December 10,” she says, laughing. “December is a special month. The year is ending and you have given it your all. I want to now be in a place with my kids where it’s just us.”

She is equally dedicated to her girl gang. Her inner circle comprises sister Karisma, Amrita Arora Ladak, Malaika Arora and Natasha Poonawalla. “We are fun, like-minded people,” says Kareena. “We are all busy working or with families, but we take the effort and the time out for each other. That’s sacrosanct.” Even her manager has been instructed to not fix a shoot on the days she has her girls’ nights.

“She really is the most giving person,” says sister Karisma. “She is a movie star, an actor, a mother and a wife, but she is so giving and thoughtful to everyone around her.” The two sisters are very close, and Karisma says much of their downtime is really talking on the phone with each other for hours. “We discuss everything, from food to our parents to our kids to the prices of vegetables,” she says, laughing. “Even though she is my sister, there is no bias here when I say that she is the most versatile actor we have seen in decades. On a scale of one to 10, Kareena Kapoor is 100.”

Rhea and Kareena became very close when they made Veere Di Wedding (2018). “Kareena is my entertainment,” says Rhea. “We talk every day about everything under the sun. We are close friends and close collaborators, too. Working with Bebo is best for me. As an actor, she really gets me as a producer, my brand of filmmaking.” Rhea says Kareena brings humour and vulnerability to her roles. “But also a pure star power that a lot of people don’t have. She is what my movies need, we will always be working together,” she says.

Kareena was the first of the four actors to be signed on for Veere (other than Rhea’s sister Sonam Kapoor). But within months, Kareena became pregnant with her first child. Rhea famously waited a whole year for Kareena to have the baby as well as lose the postpartum weight. No female actor commands this sort of loyalty; they have been historically dropped for getting married or getting pregnant. “I was very clear when I told Rhea to go ahead without me,” says Kareena. “But this is the difference between a male producer and a female producer. We wanted to go with the shoot, but the insurance angle didn’t allow us to. She really had the gumption, this is why her movies break boundaries.”

Says Rhea: “Someone like Kareena believed in me and that changed my life. Other than my sister, no one ever had faith in me or this underdog film (Veere). Only later would it go on to be a big film. No matter how many successful films I make, I will never forget that she believed in me when everyone said I couldn’t do it.”

I ask Kareena how different is filmmaking now when she dances to ‘Choli ke peeche kya hai?’ versus when Madhuri originally danced to it. Have women in cinema changed? “Today, you have three actresses front-lining a commercial potboiler,” Kareena says of Crew. “I love item songs, but we didn’t use ‘Choli ke peeche’ as an item song; it was part of the story going ahead. Today, I think women are hungrier for important parts. Producers have also changed. Today, we have female producers and directors who are raising the bar. Other producers and directors need to wake up, too.”

Jaideep Ahlawat: 'The most amazing thing about Kareena is...'

Interview/ Jaideep Ahlawat, Actor

By Namrata Zakaria

Q/ Director Sujoy Ghosh says Vijay Varma and you were like fanboys when you were told you would be romancing Kareena Kapoor Khan in Jaane Jaan.

A/ It’s true. I was very nervous. It’s Kareena Kapoor after all! I only knew her as a star and didn’t imagine her to be a co-actor. I was very happy and anxious to be working with her. Plus it was a story that had undercurrents of a love story. So that was great.

Q/What was she like on the sets then?

A/ Oh, she is truly a happy-go-lucky person. She brought a great happy energy on the set and made everyone quite relaxed. Within 10 minutes of meeting her, I, too, was quite relaxed with her.

Q/How do you find her as an actor?

A/ That’s the most amazing thing about her, you never see her prepare! I see her eating or talking to everyone, but she comes on the set prepared. Her lines, her gestures, every minute detail that makes a scene beautiful, she is ready with all. Perhaps it comes naturally to her, since she comes from the first family of actors. But it is a very special quality.

Q/Tell us a story from the sets of Jaane Jaan.

A/ I’ll tell you something that I had said in an interview after the film was made. So the thing is, I take time to open up, I am quite reserved generally. And she is Kareena Kapoor! At first I was too shy to talk to her. But then I realised that if I don’t talk to her too much, that will help Naren Vyas, my character. He is in love with her from afar, so I needed to keep that distance. So, when she heard me say that, she said, in typical Kareena fashion, “Are you serious? Now don’t do that with my husband.” My next film is with Saif Ali Khan.