Sohaila Kapur: A Brilliant Film Actress

Unfolding a creative journey.

- Santosh Mehta

Sohaila Kapur was born into a Punjabi family. Her father Kulbhushan Kapoor was physician of the former President the late Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. Name of her mother was Sheel Kanta Kapur. Bombay, now called Mumbai, is her birthplace.

The famous actress is the niece of legendary film actor the late Dev Anand and as such she is a familiar name among her audience. Though born in Bombay, she now lives in Delhi and has founded her own theatre company called Katayani.

In 2015, she performed in Kabir Khan's 'Phantom', playing a distraught Pakistani widow who loses her son to militants. Afterwards, she has acted in Sudhir Mishra's 'Daas Dev' and an international project Devbhumi directed by European director Goran Paskaljevic.

The word 'Dev' seems to be a recurring theme and the film is based on novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhayay's 1917 Bengali novel Devdas. Noted Film-actress and theatre artist Sohalia is well recognised in the Delhi circle among her well-wishers and friends. She is not only working with top filmmakers but producing and directing her own maiden plays. To name some of her peers Govind Nihlani, M.S. Satyu, Chandita Mukherjee, Satish Kaushik, Chetan Anand, Shyam Benegal, Sudhir Mishra and now the latest is Ram Madhvani among the others.

Sohaila started her career in 1991 and acted in Rukmavati Ki Haveli. Some of her popular films are Phantom, Dev Bhoomi, Cooking with Stella, Chote Nawab, Circus and Tadap among others.

Now, it's almost 32 years in her professional film and theatre career. 

She is an eminent writer, theatre director, producer and actor. She started her career writing articles for newspapers and went on to make documentaries. Her Indian Witch Hunt won the National Geographic best film award and has been telecast several times on Discovery.