Sobhita Dhulipala

Sobhita Dhulipala (born 31 May 1992) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films and television shows. She won the Femina Miss India Earth 2013 title at Femina Miss India 2013 pageant and represented India at Miss Earth 2013. Dhulipala made her acting debut in Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016) and subsequently played the lead role in the Amazon Prime Video drama series Made in Heaven (2019–2023).

Dhulipala went on to appear in the Telugu films Goodachari (2018) and Major (2022), the Malayalam films Moothon (2019) and Kurup (2021), the two-part Tamil epic Ponniyin Selvan: I (2022) and Ponniyin Selvan: II (2023), and the crime thriller series The Night Manager (2023). She expanded to American cinema with the action thriller Monkey Man (2024).

Early life and education

Sobhita Dhulipala was born on 31 May 1992, in Tenali, Andhra Pradesh into a Telugu Brahmin family. Her father Venugopal Rao, was a Merchant Navy engineer and her mother Santha Kamakshi was a primary school teacher. She grew up in Visakhapatnam She moved to Mumbai by herself at the age of sixteen and later attended H.R. College of Commerce and Economics in University of Mumbai studying corporate law. She is also a trained classical dancer in Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam. Dhulipala was crowned the Navy Queen at the annual Navy Ball pin 2010.

Pageantry

A college friend of Dhulipala's was interning at the Miss Office and suggested she audition for the upcoming pageant. Describing herself as an "uncool geek" and stating she wished for validation, Dhulipala entered with the intentions of only clearing the first round to prove to her friends she could.

Subsequently, she represented India in Miss Earth 2013, in the Philippines, but could not finish in the top 20, instead landing sub-titles of Miss Photogenic, Miss Beauty for a cause, Miss Talent and Miss Beautiful face. She also featured in Kingfisher Calendar 2014.

Personal life

On 8 August 2024, Dhulipala got engaged to actor Naga Chaitanya, following a courtship of two years.

Acting career

Dhulipala made her film debut opposite Vicky Kaushal in Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016. and also signed a three-film deal with Phantom Films in July 2016. For her role in the film, she was nominated by critics for best supporting performance at the Director's Fortnight at Cannes Film festival 2016. In early August 2016, she signed two films, Kaalakaandi directed by Akshat Verma and Chef directed by Raja Menon, both starring opposite Saif Ali Khan. In 2018, Dhulipala appeared in her first Telugu film Goodachari co-starring Adivi Sesh, playing a Psychology graduate.

In 2019, Dhulipala's portrayed Tara, a wedding planner in Amazon Prime's original series Made In Heaven, in which The Hindu called her 'layered and empathetic portrayal a standout'. She also appeared in a pivotal role in Bard of Blood, an Indian fictional spy thriller Netflix series, based on the 2015 espionage novel of the same name as an intelligence agency operative. Dhulipala made her debut in Malayalam cinema with Geetu Mohandas directorial-feature Moothon alongside Nivin Pauly, in the same year. Her final work of the year was the Hindi film The Body alongside Emraan Hashmi.

She played a pregnant woman in the anthology Ghost Stories. In 2021, Dhulipala appeared in Kurup. In 2022, Dhulipala played a guest stuck in the hotel, in Hindi-Telugu biographical Major.

Dhulipala appeared in Mani Ratnam's period film Ponniyin Selvan: I and its sequel Ponniyin Selvan: II, as Vaanathi. She then appeared alongside Anil Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapur in two seasons of The Night Manager. For the series, she won ITA Award for Best Actress - Popular (OTT). Dhulipala then reprised Tara in the second season of Made In Heaven.

In 2024, Dhulipala expanded to American cinema, playing an escort, in Dev Patel’s directorial debut Monkey Man which he also starred in. She had auditioned for the role before her initial film debut and received a call from Patel in 2019 stating that "she would be perfect for the role from the moment he saw her audition". In a mixed review, The Guardian’s Adrian Horton described Dhulipala as "alluring" but lamented the lack of characterisation her role was given.

Filmography

• All shows are in Hindi unless otherwise noted.

Accolades