Date of birth: 21st March 1978
Height: 5’ 5’’
Cousin to Kajol
Rani Mukherjee made her debut with Gabbar’s Son Shadaab Khan in Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat(1997). The movie went with the Baraat & so did Amjad Khan’s son. I remember watching this movie & not knowing this new actress with the sore throat and I wondered ’’how did they cast her?’’, until it came to the point where Rani really performs in the movie, and I said ’’Yes she surely can act.... err wots her name?’’
I think after RKAB nobody thought she would make it big. But then she didn’t get the RANI name for nuthin’ !!
Come ’Ghulam’ and ’aati kya khandala’ was a super hit, then Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota hai shot Rani Mukherjee into overnight stardom. Producer making a beeline at her doorstep.
Karan Johar believes in ’K’ and the magic of Shahrukh Khan & Rani Mukherjee (Hrithik & Kareena Kapoor).
Though Rani Mukherjee & Kajol were not there in ’Kal ho na ho’, Karan Johar made sure they made appearances for the songs.
Probably as good luck charms as Preity Zinta doesn’t have a ’k’.
Even in K3G, Rani was cast for a small role, but Karan Johar made sure his lucky charm was there (just realized sumthin’- even lucky has a ’k’ in it........... aray waaah !
I plan to make a movie ’Kyun Kaha Kabhi Kidar Kaise’ where the father is Rakesh Roshan, mother is Ekta Kapoor & son is Karan Johar- wot say?
Getting back to Khandala babe...
Everyone in the industry must have flops and Rani’s had her share too, she did many movies that didn’t do well after all this success but that didn’t discourage Rani it just made her wiser.
Personally I feel Bengali tigress’ worst move to date is ’Pyar Deewana Hota Hai’ where Govinda cuts his tongue in the end, to be accepted by her as she fell in love with the dumb person..... I wanted to bang my head when that happened !!
What were u thinking Rani? U can’t predict any movies failure or success, but you can read the script !!!
While flops were not helping the Bengali siren, soon she started to put on weight. Another reason for producers not to choose her- but that too didn’t stop her after Baadal and Hadh Kar di aapne failed.
The husky voiced heroine decided to work out & get back in shape. In ’Kahin pyaar na ho jai’ & ’Har Dil Jo Pyar Karenga’ Rani came back with
her trimmed and new look. Though these two movies did average business Rani slowly maintained her position though these two movies did not create ’hungamas’ at the box office.
Then came the critically acclaimed ’’Hey Ram’’ where she got into the eye of the storm for her controversial kiss with Kamal Hassan, though it was a small role she carried it with grace, but it didn’t do much for her. Kamal Hassan, Shahrukh, Rani Mukherjee- the ’K’ gang again.
The buxom Bengali damsel has been linked to so many of her co-stars. This is what she had to say to rumors with Govinda ’’’’The problem started because both Chi Chi and I are very animated on the sets. We both love to talk. So we gelled from day one. And the one-track mind journos put two and two together and came up with 22.’’
Moviedom’s queen of hearts is the smartest girl in showbiz, after doing some flops and learning the ropes today she chooses her roles wisely.
Choosing a Yash Raj film was a right choice, but the movie was not that great. Mujse dosti karogi failed to impress the masses though it has everything a mushy flick could ask for Hrithik, London, a beautiful church and Eric Siegel’s ’Love Story’, but what went wrong was ’’the gobi ka parathas’’ (& this was the first time Hrithik’s double thumb could be seen upclose)
This movie had all the K’s, even the director Kunal Kholi !! Should have gone for Kachoris.
You could clearly see Kareena was nothing compared to Rani in the movie.
Poo is a very appropriate name for (Kareena) her, coz that’s what her acting skills are: poo !!!
Rani began to rock again with ’Saathiya’, ’Chalte Chalte’ (interestingly both same story line and same heroine) and she was back on track.
Rani has become so important that even the King Khan took her for his home production.
Every director loves to repeat her & director Kunal Kohli chose Rani for his second film Hum Tum which everyone wondered after Kunal’s Kohli’s last movie bombed..... How and why did she say YES? Everyone wrote off this movie before it’s release, and everyone has had to eat their words.
Hum Tum shocked critics by becoming the surprise success of the year.
Rani’s chemistry with her co-stars is excellent like with Abhisek in Yuva, Aamir in Ghulam, Saif in Hum Tum, in all SRK movies, Vivek in Saathiya, fairly in Nayak with Anil Kapoor.
The Bengali queen is the only leading lady of her generation to have worked with Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Mani Ratnam & Yash Chopra, all within the same year.
After being the abused wife of Lallan Singh in ’Yuva’ which she carried out with ease, this landed her the pivotal role of Ashima in ’The Namesake’ (Mira Nair)
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s black is up for release in December where Rani will play a blind-mute girl where Big B. is her teacher. Rumors are it’s based on the life of Helen Keller.
Rani plans to hold her ’’Queen’’ position for a couple o more years with some promising movies lined uplready.
ACCLAIMED PERFORMANCES
1996 Raja Ki Aayegi Baarat
1998 Ghulam
1998 Kuch Kuch Hota Hai
2000 Bichhoo
2000 Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega
2001 Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
2001 Nayak
2002 Saathiya
2003 Chalte Chalte
2003 Chori Chori
2004 Hum Tum
2004 Yuva
FACTS
-Aishwarya Rai, Raveena Tandon, Tabu, & Twinkle Khanna refused Rani’s role in Kuch Kuch Hota hai, coz it was too small.
-Only Rani, Ash and Kareena claim 1 crore a movie (i dunno about Preity zinta)
-Rani the first choice for Lagaan but couldn’t give commit to 4 months shooting.
AWARDS
Best supporting actress award in ’’Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’’
UPCOMING MOVIES
BLACK with Amitabh Bachchan by Sanjay Leela Bhansali
BABUL by Ravi Chopra where she is the widowed daughter-in-law of Amitabh Bachchan
THE NAMESAKE by Mira Nair
THE RISING with Aamir Khan by Ketan Mehta.
VEER-ZARA with Shah Rukh Khan & Preity Zinta by Yash Chopra
In the promos of Veer Zara, Rani introduces herself as a Pakistani lawyer, unfortunately she can’t pronounce ’’Khan’’ as in Urdu rather says it in Hindi.
Amitabh Bachchan, her ’’Black’’ co-star is impressed beyond words. ’’It’s her film. And she’s phenomenal, ’’ says Bachchan.
https://rani-mukherjee.com/