Yami Gautam

Yami Gautam Dhar ( Gautam; born 28 November 1988) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. A daughter of film director Mukesh Gautam, she began her career as a model, and starred in television soap operas such as '' Chand Ke Paar Chalo'' (2008–2009) and ''Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam'' (2009–2010). After making her film debut in the Kannada film ''Ullasa Utsaha'' (2010), she had her first Hindi film release in the comedy-drama ''Vicky Donor'' (2012), which won her the Zee Cine Award for Best Female Debut.

Gautam earned acclaim for her supporting roles in the thrillers ''Badlapur'' (2015) and ''Kaabil'' (2017), and greater success came for starring in the war film '' Uri: The Surgical Strike'' and the satire ''Bala'' (both 2019). She starred in the streaming films '' Bhoot Police'' (2021), ''A Thursday'' (2022), ''Dasvi'' (2022), and ''Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga'' (2023), and had further commercial success in the satire ''OMG 2'' (2023) and the political thriller ''Article 370'' (2024).

Early and personal life

Yami Gautam was born in a Brahmin family in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh and was brought up in Chandigarh. Her father Mukesh Gautam is a Punjabi film director. He is the VP of PTC Network. Her mother is Anjali Gautam. She has a younger sister Surilie Gautam, who made her big screen debut with the Punjabi film ''Power Cut''. She also has a younger brother, Ojas Gautam.

Yami Gautam did her regular schooling, and later entered college to pursue a graduate degree in law honours. She had aspired to join Indian Administrative Service (IAS) as a young girl, but at the age of 20, she decided to venture into an acting career. Though she was pursuing studies in Law Honors (first-year PU Student of law), she left full-time studies for acting. Recently, she has been doing her part-time graduation from Mumbai. She is fond of reading, interior decoration and listening to music.

In 2015, during the filming of ''Sanam Re'', she began dating Pulkit Samrat. Though she never spoke about it, their relationship was confirmed by Samrat's wife. The couple eventually broke up in 2018. Gautam married Aditya Dhar on 4 June 2021. After marriage, she changed her name to Yami Gautam Dhar. On 10 May 2024, the couple had their first child, a boy named Vedavid.

Career

Television career (2008–2010)

Gautam was 20 when she moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in movies.Vivek Bhatia (20 June 2012)
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. ''Filmfare''. She made her television debut in '' Chand Ke Paar Chalo''. She continued to play the lead in ''Raajkumar Aaryyan''. Following this, she played her most notable role in television in, ''Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam'', which aired on Colors. She has also participated in reality shows ''Meethi Choori No 1'' and ''Kitchen Champion Season 1''.

Debut and early work (2010–2018)

After making her acting debut as the lead in the 2010 Kannada-language film ''Ullasa Utsaha'', Gautam made her Bollywood debut in a leading role in Shoojit Sircar's romantic comedy ''Vicky Donor'' (2012). Co-starring opposite debutante Ayushmann Khurrana, Annu Kapoor, and Dolly Ahluwalia's production debut, received positive reviews from critics and proved to be a major commercial success as one of the highest-grossing films of the year with worldwide grossing of 645 million (US$3.9 million). For her debut performance, Gautam received critical acclaim as well as several awards and nominations, including the award for Best Female Debut (tied with Ileana D'Cruz for ''Barfi!'') at the Zee Cine Awards, and a nomination under the same category at the 58th Filmfare Awards.

After a two-year absence from Bollywood films, Gautam returned in 2014 and appeared in two films, the first of which was Eeshwar Nivas' romantic comedy film ''Total Siyappa'', co-starring Ali Zafar, Anupam Kher, and Kirron Kher, in which she played the love interest of Zafar's character. Gautam's second appearance that year was in Prabhu Deva's action thriller '' Action Jackson''; she portrayed the love interest of the protagonist. Both ''Total Siyappa'' and ''Action Jackson'' underperformed at the box office.

In 2015, Gautam appeared alongside Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Sriram Raghavan's action thriller ''Badlapur''. The film emerged as a critical and commercial success, earning over 770 million (US$11 million) worldwide, with Gautam's performance receiving praise.

In 2016, Gautam played Pulkit Samrat's love interest in two romances—Divya Khosla Kumar's ''Sanam Re'' and Vivek Agnihotri's ''Junooniyat''. In the former, she played a high-school girl who falls in love with Samrat's character, and in the latter, she portrayed a Punjabi girl who falls in love with an army officer. Both ''Sanam Re'' and ''Junooniyat'' were critical and commercial failures.

The following year, Gautam collaborated with Hrithik Roshan on Sanjay Gupta's revengeful romantic thriller ''Kaabil'' (2017), which tells the story of a blind man who avenges the rape of his blind wife. The film, as well as her performance, received mixed-to-positive reviews, and the film emerged as a financial success, earning 1.96 billion (US$28 million) worldwide. Later in 2017, Gautam featured briefly in Ram Gopal Varma's political thriller ''Sarkar 3'', the third installment of Varma's '' Sarkar franchise'', alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee, and Amit Sadh. ''Sarkar 3'' failed to do well at the box office. Gautam's next release was the Shree Narayan Singh directed social problem drama ''Batti Gul Meter Chalu'' (2018), in which she played a lawyer alongside Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, and Divyendu Sharma.

Breakthrough, success and streaming projects (2019–present)

Gautam's breakthrough role was in 2019 when she appeared in Aditya Dhar's military action thriller '' Uri: The Surgical Strike'' opposite Vicky Kaushal. Based on the 2016 Uri attack, Gautam portrayed Pallavi Sharma, an intelligence officer. Upon release, the film received critical acclaim, with Gautam's performance also receiving praise. She then reunited with Khurrana for Amar Kaushik's comedy drama ''Bala'', a satire on physical attractiveness. The film opened to positive reviews, with Gautam unanimously receiving acclaim for her portrayal of Pari Mishra, a ditsy influencer and a part-time model. Rediff.com's Sukanya Verma found Gautam "part delirious, part deluded" and felt "there's a gentle unhinged air to her compulsive, sincere artificiality that makes her both fascinating and heartbreaking", and featured her in the publication's list of the Best Bollywood Actresses in 2019. Both ''Uri: The Surgical Strike'' and ''Bala'' emerged as commercial successes at the box-office, with the former earning over worldwide to rank as the fourth-highest grossing Hindi film of the year.

In 2020, she appeared in the romantic comedy '' Ginny Weds Sunny'' opposite Vikrant Massey, directed by debutant Puneet Khanna. The film was directly released on to Netflix instead of a theatrical release due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Critics considered the chemistry between Gautam and Massey the highlight of an otherwise monotonous film. In 2021, Gautam starred in the unremarkable horror comedy '' Bhoot Police'', co-starring Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Kapoor, and Jacqueline Fernandez. She ended the year in a brief role (billed as a special appearance) in the Punjabi comedy ''Shava Ni Girdhari Lal''.

In her first film of 2022, she appeared as a troubled playschool teacher (as Yami Gautam Dhar) who holds her students hostage in the thriller film ''A Thursday''. Upon release on to Disney+ Hotstar, it was met with positive critical reception, with Gautam Dhar receiving unanimous acclaim for her performance. Sneha Benganl of CNBC TV18 deemed her performance a career-best and felt she was "equal parts dangerous and vulnerable, daring and conflicted". Gautam Dhar's second film of the year was in the social comedy ''Dasvi'', alongside Abhishek Bachchan and Nimrat Kaur. She was cast in the role of Jyoti Deswal, an IPS officer in the jail where Chief Minister Ganga Ram Chaudhary was imprisoned. The film premiered directly on to Netflix and JioCinema to ambivalent reception. Gautam Dhar next appeared as Vidhi Sahani, a crime-journalist in search of a missing man in Aniruddha Roy Chowdhary’s social drama '' Lost''. The film had its world premiere at the Chicago South Asian Film Festival and released on ZEE5 the following year. Zinia Bandyopadhyay of ''India Today'' felt Gautam Dhar "anchors" her character "with earnestness" and "proves her mettle again".

In 2023, she appeared in the heist thriller ''Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga'', in which she played a flight attendant who attempts to steal diamonds on a hijacked aircraft with her boyfriend (played by Sunny Kaushal). The film was premiered on Netflix to positive reviews, with praised directed to Gautam Dhar's performance. While film critic Saibal Chatterjee felt Gautam Dhar was "the one who powers the film along especially when the ride turns somewhat bumpy", Monika Rawal Kukreja of Hindustan Times wrote, that she "truly nails her part and shines in every frame she appears in."

Gautam Dhar starred as a lawyer in ''OMG 2'' (2023), a satire about sex education in India, alongside Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Tripathi. It emerged as one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of the year. Her performance in the film earned her a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In 2024, Gautam Dhar collaborated with her husband for his political action thriller, ''Article 370''. Set against the backdrop of the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the film follows Gautam Dhar as an intelligence officer who attempts to abrogate the law. She described the film as "one of the most important in my career". Despite ambivalent reception from critics due to the film's jingoistic nature, Gautam Dhar's performance earned praise. In her review, Monika Rawal Kukreja described wrote that "her no-nonsense demeanour lends a gravitas to the film and she lets her action and intense dialogue delivery do most of the talking". Ranking among the highest-grossing Hindi films of 2024, it emerged as a commercial success.

In '' Dhoom Dhaam'' (2025), Gautam Dhar and Pratik Gandhi played a newly-wed couple on the run from the police. WION's Shomini Sen felt that the role was simply a variation of those Gautam Dhar had portrayed in ''Ginny Weds Sunny'' and ''Article 370'', but praised her and Gandhi for elevating the script of an otherwise predictable film.

Media image

Gautam has frequently featured on Times' 50 Most Desirable Women list. She ranked 12th in 2012, 16th in 2018, 8th in 2019 and 15th in 2020. In addition to her acting career, Gautam is a prominent celebrity endorser for brands and products including Glow & Lovely, Cornetto, Chevrolet and Dollar Missy.

Filmography

Films

Television

Awards and nominations

See also

* List of Hindi film actresses

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Gautam, Yami
Living people
1988 births
Actresses from Himachal Pradesh
Indian film actresses
Indian television actresses
Actresses in Tamil cinema
Actresses in Hindi cinema
Actresses in Telugu cinema
Actresses in Kannada cinema
People from Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh
Actresses from Chandigarh
Punjabi women
21st-century Indian actresses
Actresses in Malayalam cinema
Screen Awards winners
Zee Cine Awards winners
International Indian Film Academy Awards winners
Actresses in Punjabi cinema