Yami Gautam
Born/Date of Birthday: 28 November 1988
Place of Birth: Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, India
Occupation: Actress
Height: 1.61 m
Spouse(s): Aditya Dhar ​(m. 2021)​
Parent(s): Mukesh Gautam (father)
Relatives: Surilie Gautam (sister)

Yami Gautam Dhar (born 28 November 1988) is an Indian film actress who works predominantly in Hindi films with few Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil films. She sprang into prominence after doing some commercials of Glow & Lovely and began her acting career firstly in television shows, followed by South Indian films and eventually her progress to Hindi cinema films.

Gautam's initial success had been playing lead roles in TV shows like Chand Ke Paar Chalo (2008–2009) and Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam (2009–2010), post which she became a part of numerous Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films. It was her highly acclaimed Hindi film debut role in the critically and commercially successful satirical rom-com Vicky Donor (2012), that gave her wider appraisal and fame.

Though followed by few unprofitable features, with the exception of the thriller Badlapur (2015), Gautam reinforced and gained high critical and commercial success with her highest grossing releases including the revenge drama Kaabil (2017), the action war film Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019) and the satirical comedy Bala (2019).

Early life and background
Yami Gautam was born in a Hindu Brahmin family in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh and was brought up in Chandigarh. Her father Mukesh Gautam is a Punjabi film director. He is the VP of PTC Network. Her mother is Anjali Gautam. She has a younger sister Surilie Gautam, who made her big screen debut with the Punjabi film Power Cut. She did her regular schooling, and later entered college to pursue a graduate degree in law honours. She had aspired to join Indian Administrative Services (IAS) as a young girl, but at the age of 20, decided to venture into an acting career. Though she was pursuing studies in Law Honors (first-year PU Student of law), she left full-time studies for acting. Recently, she has been doing her part-time graduation from Mumbai. She is fond of reading, interior decoration and listening to music.

Personal life
Yami Gautam married Aditya Dhar on 4 June 2021. After marriage, she changed her name to Yami Gautam Dhar.

Career
Television career (2008–2010)
Gautam was 20 when she moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in movies. She made her television debut in Chand Ke Paar Chalo,. She continued to play the lead in Raajkumar Aaryyan. Following this, she played her most notable role in television in, Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam, which aired on Colors. She has also participated in reality shows Meethi Choori No 1 and Kitchen Champion Season 1.

Film career (2009-present)
Debut and early career (2009–2018)
After making her debut in lead with the 2009 Kannada film Ullasa Utsaha, Gautam made her Bollywood debut in a leading role in Shoojit Sircar's romantic comedy Vicky Donor (2012). Co-starring opposite debutante Ayushmann Khurrana, Annu Kapoor and Dolly Ahluwalia, she portrayed Ashima Roy, a Bengali woman who falls in love with the titular character, a Punjabi lad from the Arora family, and gets to know about his past after marriage. The film, which marked Bollywood actor John Abraham's production debut, received positive reviews from critics and proved to be a major commercial success and one of the highest-grossing films of the year with worldwide grossing of ₹645 million (US$3.9 million). For her debut performance, Gautam received critical acclaim as well as several awards and nominations, including the Best Female Debut (tied with Ileana D'Cruz for Barfi!) trophy at the Zee Cine Awards, and a nomination under the same category at the 58th Filmfare Awards.

After a two-year absence from Bollywood films, Gautam returned in 2014 and appeared in two films, the first of which was Eeshwar Nivas's romantic comedy film Total Siyappa, co-starring Ali Zafar, Anupam Kher, and Kirron Kher, in which she played the love interest of Zafar's character. Gautam's second Bollywood release that year was Prabhu Deva's action thriller Action Jackson, in which Ajay Devgn portrayed a double role, while she and Sonakshi Sinha featured as the love interests of his characters. Both Total Siyappa and Action Jackson under-performed at the box office.

In 2015, Gautam appeared alongside Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Sriram Raghavan's action thriller Badlapur. The film, which focuses on the story of a man (Raghu, played by Dhawan) who over the course of 15 years avenges the murder of his wife (Misha, played by her) and son, emerged as a critical and commercial success, collecting ₹770 million (US$11 million) worldwide, with Gautam's performance receiving praise.

In 2016, Gautam played Pulkit Samrat's love interest in two romances–Divya Khosla Kumar's Sanam Re and Vivek Agnihotri's Junooniyat. In the former, she played a high-school girl who falls in love with Samrat's character, and in the latter, she portrayed a Punjabi girl who falls in love with an army officer. Both Sanam Re and Junooniyat were critical and commercial failures.

The following year, Gautam collaborated with Hrithik Roshan on Sanjay Gupta's revengeful romantic thriller Kaabil (2017), which tells the story of a blind man who avenges the rape of his blind wife. The film, as well as her performance, received mixed-to-positive reviews and the film emerged as a financial success, earning ₹1.96 billion (US$28 million) worldwide. Later in 2017, Gautam featured briefly in Ram Gopal Varma's political thriller Sarkar 3, the third installment of Varma's Sarkar franchise, alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee, and Amit Sadh. Sarkar 3 failed to do well at the box office. Gautam's next release was the Shree Narayan Singh directed-social problem dramedy Batti Gul Meter Chalu (2018), in which she played a lawyer alongside Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, and Divyendu Sharma.

Breakthrough and success (2019-present)
Gautam's greatest success came in 2019 when she appeared in Aditya Dhar's military action thriller film Uri: The Surgical Strike, alongside Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Mohit Raina, and Kirti Kulhari. Based on the 2016 Uri attack, Gautam portrayed Pallavi Sharma, a nurse-turned-an intelligence officer. Upon release, the film received high critical acclaim, with Gautam's performance receiving high praise, and the film grossed over ₹3.36 billion (US$54 million) worldwide. She reunited with Khurrana in Amar Kaushik's comedy-drama Bala, a satire on physical attractiveness, which was released on 7 November 2019.

As of October 2020, she appeared in the film Ginny Weds Sunny opposite Vikrant Massey directed by debutant Puneet Khanna and produced by Vinod Bachchan, which is available for streaming on Netflix from 9 October 2020. In 2021, she appeared in Pavan Kirpalani's horror comedy Bhoot Police, co-starring Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Kapoor and Jacqueline Fernandez. It received mixed reviews. She next had a special appearance as Mannat in Shava Ni Girdhari Lal.

Her first release in 2022 is Behzad Khambata's thriller A Thursday, alongside Neha Dhupia and Atul Kulkarni. She essayed the role of Naina Jaiswal, a playschool teacher who takes 16 children as hostages..

Upcoming projects

As of February 2021, Gautam began shooting for a social comedy film Dasvi, produced by Dinesh Vijan's Maddock Films and Jio Studios, alongside Abhishek Bachchan and Nimrat Kaur. She has also committed to appear as protagonist in Aniruddha Roy Chowdhary’s untitled social drama. and will also appear in OMG 2 – Oh My God! 2.

Brand endorsements
Her brand endorsements include Glow & Lovely, Cornetto, Samsung Mobile, Chevrolet, Revlon among others.