Disha Patani

Disha Patani (born 13 June 1992) is an Indian actress who works mainly in Hindi films. She began her career in Telugu cinema with Loafer (2015) and broke through a year later with M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story. Known for her fitness and for supporting roles in male-led action films, she appeared on Forbes India’s Celebrity 100 list in 2019, and she returned to Telugu cinema in Kalki 2898 AD.

Early life

Patani was born in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. Her father, Jagadish Singh Patani, is a police officer, and her mother is a health inspector. Her elder sister, Khushboo, served as a major in the Indian Army and now works as a fitness coach and entrepreneur, and she has a younger brother, Suryansh. Patani studied engineering at Amity University, Lucknow, but left in her second year. In 2013 she was first runner-up at Pond’s Femina Miss India Indore.

Telugu debut

Her first film was the Telugu action drama Loafer, directed by Puri Jagannadh, in which she starred alongside Varun Tej as Mouni, a young woman who runs away from home to escape a forced marriage. According to the source, the film was made for ₹200 million and collected ₹106 million, a poor result at the box office. The following year she appeared in the music video “Befikra” with Tiger Shroff.

Hindi breakthrough

Her commercial breakthrough came with Neeraj Pandey’s M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), a biographical sports film about the former Indian cricket captain, in which she played Priyanka Jha, the girlfriend of the lead character. The film was a major success, earning over ₹2.16 billion according to the source, and critics praised her debut. It won her the IIFA Award for Star Debut of the Year – Female. She then appeared in Jackie Chan’s Chinese action comedy Kung Fu Yoga (2017), alongside Sonu Sood.

She starred opposite Tiger Shroff in Baaghi 2 (2018), which grossed over ₹258 crore worldwide and was among the highest-grossing Hindi films of that year, though reviewers gave her little credit for her role. After a brief part in Bharat (2019), she co-starred in Mohit Suri’s action thriller Malang (2020), which drew better notices for her and was a moderate success.

A difficult stretch

The years that followed were less successful. Radhe (2021), opposite Salman Khan, was released on a streaming platform during the pandemic and was panned by critics. Ek Villain Returns (2022), in which she played a proxy killer, underperformed, and Yodha (2024), in which she played a terrorist disguised as an air hostess, was a box-office bomb, even though one critic saw potential in her as an action star.

Kalki 2898 AD and Tamil debut

In 2024 she returned to Telugu cinema with a brief role as Roxie, the love interest of Bhairava, played by Prabhas, in Kalki 2898 AD. Critics considered the cameo unnecessary, but the film earned over ₹12 billion according to the source, becoming the year’s highest-grossing Indian film and her first success since Malang. She made her Tamil debut the same year in Kanguva, playing a bounty hunter opposite Suriya; the film underperformed.

Recent work

After a year without a release, she had three films in 2026. O’Romeo, in which she played a dancer, failed commercially, but the comedy Welcome to the Jungle and the romantic drama Awarapan 2, where she played the female lead opposite Emraan Hashmi, were both commercial successes. One reviewer noted a clear improvement in her performance in Awarapan 2.

Critics have often observed that many of her roles give her limited screen time and little emotional depth, while acknowledging her fitness, dancing and screen presence.

Sources: Wikipedia and Wikidata.