Bhumi Pednekar (Hindustani pronunciation:[bʱuːmɪpeːɖneːkər] born 18 July 1989) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. Known for her portrayals of headstrong small-town women, she is the recipient of several awards including three Filmfare Awards.[1][2]
Pednekar was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) on 18 July 1989.[3][4] She is of Konkani and Haryanvi descent; her father, Satish Pednekar, was a former MLA and Home and Labour Minister of Maharashtra. Her mother, Sumitra Pednekar, worked as an anti-tobacco activist after the death of her husband from oral cancer.[5][6][7] Bhumi has a younger sister named Samiksha, who is a lawyer and a model.[8][9] She did her schooling from Arya Vidya Mandir in Juhu.[10] At the age of 15, her parents took out a study loan for her to study acting at Whistling Woods International, but she was expelled due to poor attendance.[6] Within a year and a half, she joined Yash Raj Films as an assistant casting director, and paid off the loan.[6] She went on to work with the company for six years under Shanoo Sharma.[10][11]
Two years later, Pednekar was cast in the satire Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017) as a young woman in rural India who insists on the eradication of open defecation, opposite Akshay Kumar.[19] Despite disliking the story, Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV praised her for "flesh[ing] out a refreshingly relatable college topper who becomes the principal catalyst for a mini-revolution".[20] With a worldwide gross of over ₹3 billion (US$36 million), it emerged as one of the highest-grossing Hindi films of the year and Pednekar's biggest grosser.[21][22]
Later that year, her performance opposite Khurrana in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, a satire on erectile dysfunction, earned Pednekar her first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.[23][24] Reviewing the film for The Indian Express, Shubhra Gupta wrote that Pednekar "once again reminds us just how convincing she can be as a real honest-to-goodness young woman in search of love", but bemoaned that she was being typecast in such roles.[25]Shubh Mangal Saavdhan grossed ₹700 million (US$8.4 million) worldwide.[26]Zoya Akhtar's segment in the Netflix anthology film Lust Stories marked Pednekar's sole screen appearance of 2018; she played a maid who has an affair with her employer.[27] Writing for NDTV, Raja Sen considered Akhtar's segment to be the best in the anthology, and found Pednekar "hauntingly good" in it.[28]
Abhishek Chaubey's crime drama Sonchiriya was Pednekar's first release of 2019. She played a young housewife on the run in rural Chambal, alongside Sushant Singh Rajput and Manoj Bajpayee. In preparation, she underwent two and a half months of physical training to portray her character's mannerism and gait; she also learned to fire a gun.[29] Rahul Desai of Film Companion praised the subtlety in the film and its performances, and credited Pednekar for "lend[ing] an inevitable sense of womanhood to the silenced".[30] She next starred as the septuagenarian sharpshooter Chandro TomarinTushar Hiranandani's biographical film Saand Ki Aankh, opposite Taapsee Pannu who played her sister-in-law Prakashi Tomar. In preparation, Pannu and Pednekar spent time with the two women and trained in shooting a gun.[2] She suffered from skin allergies from filming in the heat wearing prosthetic make-up.[31] Udita Jhunjunwala of Mint wrote, "Pannu and Pednekar are wonderful and spunky and embrace their parts even though their body language and posture is variable".[32] Both actresses were jointly awarded the Screen Award and Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress.[33][34]
Continuing her portrayals of headstrong small-town women, Pednekar starred in Bala and Pati Patni Aur Woh (both 2019).[2] The former marked her third collaboration with Khurrana, in which she played a dark-skinned woman who faces prejudice due to her skin colour. Controversy arose for casting a fair-skinned woman in the role, but Pednekar defended herself by saying that an actor should be allowed to play any part.[35][36]Pati Patni Aur Woh, a remake of a 1978 film of the same name and co-starring Kartik Aaryan and Ananya Panday, featured her as a housewife with a philandering husband. Anupama Chopra wrote that "it's Bhumi Pednekar's spirited Vedika who lifts the material up a notch. Bhumi has an intelligence that rescues some of the silliest scenes in this film, especially in the climax."[37] Both Bala and Pati Patni Aur Woh were commercially successful, each grossing over ₹1 billion (US$12 million) worldwide.[38]
After a year-long absence from the screen, Pednekar starred alongside Rajkummar Rao as gay individuals in a lavender marriage in the comedy-drama Badhaai Do (2022).[46][47] She was pleased with the opportunity of playing the vulnerable character of a closeted lesbian, as it marked a departure from the strong-willed women she typically played.[48] Rachana Dubey of The Times of India praised the film's handling of LGBT themes and found Pednekar's performance to be "sensitive, nuanced, and on point".[49] She won another Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress (shared with Tabu for Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2), in addition to her second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress.[50][51] She reteamed with Akshay Kumar in Aanand L. Rai's family film Raksha Bandhan. The film was panned for its regressive storytelling and it emerged as a box office bomb.[52] She then appeared in Shashank Khaitan's comic thriller Govinda Naam Mera, co-starring Vicky Kaushal and Kiara Advani, which released on Disney+ Hotstar.[53]Mid-Day's Hiren Kotwani found her "over-the-top" portrayal to be the best performance in a disappointing film.[54]
In 2023, Pednekar reteamed with Rajkummar Rao in Anubhav Sinha's Bheed, a drama in black-and-white about the COVID-19 lockdown in India.[55] Reviewers for Scroll.in and Rediff.com complimented her for ably supporting Rao's performance.[56][57] She then starred alongside Nawazuddin SiddiquiinSudhir Mishra's Afwaah, a thriller about fake news.[58] Both Bheed and Afwaah had controversial political themes; they received a limited theatrical release and had poor box office returns.[59][60] Her next release, the sex comedy Thank You for Coming, premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.[61] It marked her first project in which she was cast in an urban setting, but she found it challenging to play a character that came close to her own personality, saying that it required "a lot of [my] own demons [...] to be examined".[62] Comparing her "vibrant comedic performance" to that of stars Carole Lombard and Goldie Hawn, IndieWire's Marya E. Gates found Pednekar's "irrepressible charm" and "overwhelming beauty" to be the highlight in a mediocre film.[63] Though another box office bomb, she received another Best Actress nomination at Filmfare.[64][65] She then starred opposite Arjun Kapoor in the thriller The Lady Killer. The film was released without principal photography being completed; it was only given a small release without any marketing and did not find an audience.[66] It became one of the biggest box office bombs of Indian cinema, earning less than ₹1 lakh against a production budget of ₹45 crore.[67]
In 2024, Pednekar portrayed a journalist in the crime drama Bhakshak.[68] She described the role as "one of my most mature", causing her to "question my empathy and how I had become so numb towards somebody else’s pain".[69] Shubhra Gupta described her as "earnest" and "believable" in a movie that lacked "basic story-telling".[70] She will next be seen alongside Rakul Preet Singh and opposite Arjun Kapoor in the comedy Meri Patni Ka Remake.[71] Pednekar will also star in the thriller series Daldal for Prime Video.[72]
The journalist Priyanka Roy of The Telegraph wrote in 2019 that Pednekar specialises in playing "women of fortitude with a strong moral fibre, mostly hailing from small towns".[1] She was featured by Forbes India in their 30 Under 30 list of 2018.[73] Pednekar ranked 5th in Rediff.com's "Best Bollywood Actresses" list of 2020.[74] She was featured various times in Times' 50 Most Desirable Women list. She ranked 40th in 2019 and 39th in 2020.[75][76]
In 2019, Pednekar began a campaign named Climate Warrior to raise awareness on environmental protection and global warming.[77] She is also vocal about issues such as pay parity and has spoken out about the gender pay gap in Bollywood, calling it "insulting" and "heartbreaking".[1] In 2020, she teamed with MTV India for their Nishedh campaign, which aims to create awareness about health issues, including reproductive health, among the youth.[78] She was appointed as the brand ambassador of Nykaa in 2022.[79] In 2023, she was named by the United Nations Development Programme as India's first National Advocate for Sustainable Development Goals, to raise awareness on climate change on social media.[80]