Homeschooled by her friends' parents, trained eight years in Kathak, told once she was too fat for a film — and then, in 2018, the first Indian actress ever nominated for an International Emmy.
She spent three years behind the camera as an assistant director to Luv Ranjan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali before she ever stood in front of one. Then: a Filmfare debut award, Munjya's sleeper hit, and the YRF Spy Universe.
Rejected twice from Sa Re Ga Ma Pa as a child, spotted singing at Kala Ghoda, cast as young Shah Rukh Khan — and then nominated for a BAFTA for The White Tiger. Adarsh Gourav's route was nobody's plan.
Daughter of two actors who trained as a competitive swimmer, went to Harvard summer school to learn directing, and then became one of the most dependable leads in Indian streaming — Mirzapur, Guilty Minds, Taaza Khabar.
She failed her first audition and was given a backstage job instead. That job introduced her to the writer of Little Things — and a Marathi cup song did the rest. Two Filmfare OTT Awards later, 3.9M follow her.
He taught himself music off YouTube, played bars and weddings, then became Anmol in Mismatched — and wrote two of the show's songs himself. Actor, singer, songwriter and composer, all at once.
An Auckland student uploading Hindi covers from her bedroom won a T-Series contest and got a nickname she never shook off. Shirley Setia now has 7.4M on Instagram, 3.78M on YouTube and three films.
Spotted on Facebook, cast on a hunch, trained at RADA — and now running four brands. Parul Gulati acts in Girls Hostel and Silence 2, and founded the hair-extensions company she took to Shark Tank India.
He moved to Mumbai alone at fifteen to finish his late father's dream of making him an actor. Ten years later: Dear Zindagi, Hichki, Ludo, Mismatched, a Hindi lead, and Forbes Asia's 30 Under 30.
She played Kareena Kapoor's childhood in 2002 and has been working ever since — twenty-four years, three careers: child actor, web-series lead in Please Find Attached, and a travel channel with 465K subscribers.
She spent the first four years of her career being cast as a boy. Two decades on, Ahsaas Channa is one of the faces of India's web-series generation — Girls Hostel, Kota Factory, Hostel Daze, Half CA — with 3.6M followers on Instagram.
The Delhi history student who parodied a callous news interview on a phone camera in 2015 and built BB Ki Vines into a 26.5-million-subscriber universe — playing every character in it himself.
