Kartik Aaryan

Kartik Aaryan is a Hindi film actor from Gwalior with no family background in film. Both his parents are doctors. He was studying biotechnology engineering at D.Y. Patil University in Mumbai when he started acting. He has said he skipped classes and travelled two hours to auditions, and he told his parents he wanted to act only after he had signed his first film.

That film was Luv Ranjan's Pyaar Ka Punchnama (2011). Akaash Vani (2013) and Kaanchi (2014) did not build on it, but Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2 (2015) and Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018), his breakthrough, made him a star. Luka Chuppi and Pati Patni Aur Woh (both 2019) followed. He went against type in the thrillers Dhamaka (2021) and Freddy (2022), and in the romantic drama Satyaprem Ki Katha (2023).

His biggest hits are the horror comedies Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (2024). Playing the Paralympic champion Murlikant Petkar in Chandu Champion (2024) won him a National Film Award and the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.

He found the Pyaar Ka Punchnama casting call on Facebook and auditioned for six months to get the part. At the time he shared a flat with twelve other hopeful actors and cooked for them to earn money. His four-minute monologue in the film was one of the longest single shots in a Hindi film to that point, and critics singled it out. The film became a sleeper hit and earned him a Producers Guild nomination for Best Male Debut. At his mother's insistence he finished his engineering degree after the film came out.