Breakthrough (2008–2013) Sharma made her acting debut in
Aditya Chopra's romantic drama
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), opposite
Shah Rukh Khan. She took a day to prepare for her screen test at the
Yash Raj Films studio and refused to do an impromptu one. but
Nikhat Kazmi thought that she "lacks all chutzpah and can barely hold your attention". The film was a major commercial success, emerging as the
second-highest grossing Hindi film of that year, and earned Sharma
Filmfare Award nominations for
Best Actress and
Best Female Debut. Two years later, Sharma played the leading lady in the crime-comedy
Badmaash Company, directed by
Parmeet Sethi and co-starring
Shahid Kapoor,
Vir Das and
Meiyang Chang. The film, which tells the story of four underachieving friends who begin a scam business enterprise, received mixed reviews, but was a moderate success. at the DVD launch of
Band Baaja Baaraat in 2010 Later in 2010, Sharma completed her three-film contract with Yash Raj Films by starring in
Band Baaja Baaraat, a romantic comedy directed by
Maneesh Sharma and co-starring debutant
Ranveer Singh. Her role was that of Shruti Kakkar, an ambitious middle-class
Punjabi girl who starts her own
wedding planning business. In preparation for the part, Sharma learned to speak in the Punjabi dialect, which she cited as the toughest part of her role; she described the way the lead characters in the film interact as "crude but cute" and it required her to "talk fast, sometimes mix words and even omit words completely". Trade analysts expressed doubt on
Band Baaja Baaraats financial prospect, citing the middling response to Yash Raj Films' last few productions, the lack of a male star, and saying that by then Sharma was an "almost-forgotten" actress. However,
Band Baaja Baaraat earned positive reviews and emerged as a
sleeper hit. Sharma's performance was praised by critics, many of whom cited it as her best work to that point. The critic
Anupama Chopra wrote that Sharma "comes into her own as the ambitious Delhi girl, who dreams of upgrading to multi-crore Sainik Farms weddings". For her work in the film, Sharma received her second nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Sharma's first venture not to be produced by Yash Raj Films was the drama
Patiala House (2011) directed by
Nikkhil Advani and co-starring
Akshay Kumar. The film tells the story of a budding cricketer (played by Kumar) who encounters trouble in convincing his father of his profession; Sharma was cast as the love interest of Kumar's character. Sukanya Verma of
Rediff.com praised Sharma's work and labelled her a "metaphor for energy". That same year, she re-united with co-star Ranveer Singh and director Maneesh Sharma for the comedy-drama
Ladies vs Ricky Bahl. She featured as Ishika Desai, a salesgirl hired to outwit a conman (essayed by Singh), who ends up falling in love with him instead. The film and Sharma's performance received mixed reviews, with Piyali Dasgupta of
NDTV calling her "believable but not endearing". Despite mixed reviews, the film was a moderate success at the box office. In 2012, Sharma played a supporting role alongside Shah Rukh Khan and
Katrina Kaif in
Yash Chopra's "
swan song", the romance
Jab Tak Hai Jaan, which marked her fifth collaboration with Yash Raj Films and her second with Khan. She was cast as Akira Rai, a
Discovery Channel reporter who harbours ambitions of being a documentary filmmaker.
Rajeev Masand wrote that Sharma "brings a spark to the film", but
Raja Sen disagreed and said that "while Anushka can indeed play spunky, she needed here to tone it down several notches". For her role, she won the
Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Jab Tak Hai Jaan proved to be the
third highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2012. Sharma next appeared in
Vishal Bhardwaj's
Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013), a
political satire set in a village in
Haryana. Co-starring alongside
Pankaj Kapur,
Imran Khan and
Shabana Azmi, Sharma played the titular role of Bijlee Mandola, a strong-headed girl who engages in a romantic affair with Khan's character despite being engaged to another man. The film received positive to mixed reviews from critics, and underperformed at the box office. Several critics noted that Sharma was being stereotyped as a loud and loquacious girl; Raja Sen noted that she "is great in a couple of scenes near the climax," though Kanika Sikka of
Daily News and Analysis was more critical and found her "unconvincing".
Success and expansion into film production (2014–2016) In 2014, Sharma played a television journalist who befriends an alien (played by
Aamir Khan), in
Rajkumar Hirani's religious satire
PK. Critic Saibal Chatterjee wrote that Sharma plays "a feisty poetry-loving girl who knows her mind far more than most Hindi film heroines are allowed to" and praised her for "hold[ing] her own" against Khan. Critically acclaimed,
PK emerged as the
highest-grossing Bollywood film with a worldwide revenue of over . Sharma received various accolades for her performance including a nomination for
IIFA Award for Best Actress. Sharma also became the highest grossing Hindi film actress of the year, as reported by
Bollywood Hungama. Sharma launched a production company named
Clean Slate Filmz in 2013, whose first release was
Navdeep Singh's thriller
NH10 (2015), in which she also played the lead role. Screened at the
5th Beijing International Film Festival, it tells the story of a married couple whose lives are endangered after an encounter with a group of criminals. In preparation, Sharma underwent
interval training for three months to build her stamina. Saibal Chatterjee found the film to be a "taut and riveting thriller" and praised Sharma for "conveying a range of moods as she moves from the vulnerable to the fearless in a battle in which the odds are stacked heavily against her", and Prarthana Sarkar of
International Business Times credited her for breaking away from her romantic comedy image. The film also emerged as a box office success. '' in 2015, which marked her production debut In
Anurag Kashyap's period crime drama
Bombay Velvet (2015), (based on the historian
Gyan Prakash's book
Mumbai Fables) co-starring
Ranbir Kapoor and
Karan Johar, Sharma was cast as a jazz singer, Rosie Noronha. Her character was referenced from the actresses
Brigitte Bardot,
Helen and
Waheeda Rehman. To prepare, Sharma watched films of the 1950s and 1960s, and documentaries about hair and make-up.
Bombay Velvet was screened at the
Locarno and
Bucheon film festivals; critical opinion was mixed. Writing for
Business Standard, Ritika Bhatia praised Sharma's performance in the song "Dhadaam Dhadaam": "she fills the stage with such raw emotion that her mascara-laden tears and fake eyelashes flutter with arresting passion". However, the film failed to recoup its investment. In the same year, Sharma featured in the supporting role of a dancer aboard a cruise ship in
Zoya Akhtar's
Dil Dhadakne Do, an ensemble comedy-drama in which she was featured opposite Ranveer Singh. The song sequence "Pehli Baar" was choreographed by her and Singh; Shilpa Jamkhandikar of
Reuters praised their on-screen chemistry and described it as "crackling". Her performances in
NH10 and
Dil Dhadakne Do earned Sharma Filmfare Award nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. Sharma next reunited with Yash Raj Films in
Sultan (2016), a romantic sports drama from the writer-director
Ali Abbas Zafar. She took on the role of Aarfa Hussain, a wrestler from
Haryana who inspires the title character (played by
Salman Khan) to take up the sport. Sharma was initially hesitant to play the part as she did not have the physique of a wrestler; she researched on different
weight categories to "beat people's perception that all wrestlers are huge." She trained for six weeks in the sport, learned to speak the Haryanvi dialect, and interacted with female wrestlers from the state. The film and her performance received mixed reviews. Critics were appreciative of her substantial role in an androcentric film;
Filmfares Rachit Gupta described Sharma as "the best thing in the film" and noted that "[e]ven though she doesn't have the physique of a wrestler, her spirited performance makes you believe in her tough but emotional character." However, Suprateek Chatterjee of
The Huffington Post felt that she was unconvincing as a wrestler, writing that "she possesses literally zero muscles and somehow always finds the time to get her make-up just right." Sharma achieved further success later that year when she played the lead female role of Alizeh Khan, a free-spirited girl in a loveless relationship in Karan Johar's romantic drama
Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, alongside Ranbir Kapoor and
Aishwarya Rai. Mike Maccahil of
The Guardian took note of how much Sharma "terrific spikiness" and her chemistry with Kapoor helped a mediocre picture. In another typical mixed review, Sweta Kaushal of
Hindustan Times praised Sharma's empowered female lead.
Sukanya Verma ranked her performance number four in
Rediffs list of top ten performances of the year. The film earned over worldwide, and Sharma received a Best Actress nomination at the
62nd Filmfare Awards. With two top-grossing films in 2016,
Bollywood Hungama ranked Sharma as the most successful Bollywood actress of the year.
Career fluctuations, production focus and hiatus (2017–2022) '' in 2017 The 2017 fantasy comedy
Phillauri, co-starring
Suraj Sharma and
Diljit Dosanjh, featured Sharma as a friendly ghost who wants to reunite with her lover. In addition to acting and producing, Sharma also sang a song in it. She next collaborated with Shah Rukh Khan for the third time in
Imtiaz Ali's
Jab Harry Met Sejal, a romance about a Gujrati tourist (Sharma) in Europe who falls in love with her tour guide (Khan). Commenting on Sharma's performances in
Phillauri and
Jab Harry Met Sejal, Uday Bhatia of
Mint praised her ability for "straight-faced com[edy]". Bhatia, however, criticised her pairing with Khan, 22 years her senior, in the latter film. Sharma's first film release of 2018 was the horror film
Pari, which she starred in and produced. It tells the story of Rukhsana (Sharma), a battered young woman living in the wilderness, who is rescued by a benevolent man (played by
Parambrata Chatterjee). Though Shubhra Gupta of
The Indian Express found the film "scatter-brained" and added that "nothing can rescue it, not even a leading lady who is determined to do something different with her producing heft", Sukanya Verma featured her performance in Rediff.com's annual list of best actresses, writing, "going from unhinged to ghastly to mesmeric, here's an actress who's game for everything." It earned worldwide against a production budget of . Sharma next played a biographer documenting the life of the troubled actor
Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani's biopic
Sanju, starring Ranbir Kapoor in the title role. Rajeev Masand commended the film's ensemble but was critical of Sharma's performance, writing that she "sticks out with strange hair and stranger accent". Even so, it emerged as her third release to earn over worldwide. In the same year, Sharma teamed with Yash Raj Films for the eighth time in
Sui Dhaaga, a comedy-drama co-starring
Varun Dhawan, about a poor, young couple who begin their own small-scale clothing industry. Ronak Kotecha of
The Times of India praised the subtle chemistry between the leads and credited Sharma for playing the restrained role effortlessly. She received a nomination for the
Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. It emerged a box office success. Sharma's final film appearance of the year was in
Zero, a drama about a dwarf's romantic tribulations involving two women, which reunited her with Shah Rukh Khan and Katrina Kaif. She played a
NASA scientist with
cerebral palsy, for which she met with an occupational therapist and an audiologist; she also stayed in character and chose to use a wheelchair between shots. Anupama Chopra considered her portrayal of the condition to be "inconsistent and clumsy" but
Namrata Joshi of
The Hindu found her "earnest and invested". As with her previous collaboration with Khan,
Zero was a commercial failure. In 2020, Sharma served as executive producer for her company's crime thriller series
Paatal Lok, which was released on
Amazon Prime Video, and produced the horror film
Bulbbul for
Netflix.
Anna M. M. Vetticad found recurring themes of "feminism and the paranormal" in several of her company's projects, and credited Sharma for her "courageous, non-conformist" choices as a producer. In 2022, Sharma announced that she would step away from her producing duties for her banner Clean Slate Filmz, and that her brother would be the sole owner of the company. Following this, Sharma appeared as an actress in her co-production
Qala.
Deepa Gahlot took note of her "lovely" cameo appearance. In the same year, Sharma had filmed the part of cricketer
Jhulan Goswami in the biopic ''
Chakda 'Xpress'', but as of 2024, it has not been picked up for distribution. == Personal life ==