Vicky Kaushal

Vicky Kaushal is an Indian actor who works primarily in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including a National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards, and was named to the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list in 2019. Outside of his film career, Kaushal endorses several commercial brands, has co-hosted and performed at major industry award ceremonies, and is married to actress Katrina Kaif, with whom he has a son.

Kaushal was born on May 16, 1988, in a Mumbai chawl to Sham Kaushal, an action director in Indian cinema, and Veena Kaushal, a homemaker. He was raised in a Punjabi Hindu family with ancestral roots in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, alongside his younger brother, Sunny, who also became an actor. Although he enjoyed academics, cricket, and films as a youth, his father encouraged him to pursue a stable non-entertainment career, leading Kaushal to graduate with a degree in electrical engineering from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology in 2009. Following an industrial visit to an IT company, he realized he did not want an office job and turned to acting. He trained at Kishore Namit Kapoor's academy while gaining backstage and performance experience in theatre with Aranya and Motley Productions, making his stage debut in the 2011 play Laal Pencil.

Kaushal began working in feature films as an assistant director to Anurag Kashyap on the crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur (2012). He subsequently took on minor roles in Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana (2012), the short film Geek Out (2013), and Bombay Velvet (2015). His first leading role came in the independent drama Masaan (2015), which was showcased at the Cannes Film Festival and won him the IIFA and Screen Awards for Best Male Debut. He followed this with performances in the drama Zubaan (2015) and Kashyap's psychological thriller Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016), in which he portrayed a troubled police officer.

Kaushal achieved a career breakthrough in 2018 with prominent roles in the romantic comedy Love per Square Foot, the spy thriller Raazi, and the biographical drama Sanju. His portrayal of Kamli in Sanju earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. That same year, he appeared in the anthology Lust Stories and the romantic drama Manmarziyaan. In 2019, he starred as a military officer in the action feature Uri: The Surgical Strike, which earned over ₹3.5 billion worldwide and won him the National Film Award for Best Actor. He then starred in the horror film Bhoot – Part One: The Haunted Ship (2020).

In 2021, Kaushal earned critical acclaim playing the title freedom fighter in the biographical drama Sardar Udham, winning the IIFA Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. He subsequently appeared in the comic thriller Govinda Naam Mera (2022) and the commercially successful romantic comedy Zara Hatke Zara Bachke (2023). His 2023 releases also included The Great Indian Family, the biopic Sam Bahadur, and a special appearance in Dunki, which earned him a second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In 2024, Kaushal starred in the commercially successful comedy Bad Newz. The following year, he portrayed Maratha ruler Sambhaji in the historical action film Chhaava (2025), which grossed over ₹7.9 billion to become his highest-earning film release.