Katrina Kaif (pronounced [k@'tri:na: 'ke:f], born Katrina Turquotte, 16 July 1983) is an English actress who works in Hindi films. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics for her acting prowess, she has established herself in Bollywood, and is considered among the country's most attractive and highest-paid actresses. Born in Hong Kong, Kaif and her family lived in several countries before she moved to London. She received her first modelling assignment as a teenager and later pursued a career as a fashion model.

Katrina Kaif was born in Hong Kong with her mother's surname Turquotte (also spelt Turcotte), on 16 July 1983. According to the actress, her father (Mohammed Kaif) is a British businessman of Kashmiri Indian descent and her mother (Suzanne, also spelt Susanna) is an English lawyer and charity worker. She has seven siblings: three elder sisters (Stephanie, Christine, and Natasha), three younger sisters (Melissa, Sonia, and Isabel) and an elder brother, Michael. Isabelle Kaif is also a model and actress. Kaif's parents divorced when she was a child, and her father moved to the United States. She said her father had no influence on Kaif or her siblings while they were growing up, and they were raised by their mother. On her father's absence in her life, Kaif stated: "When I see friends who have wonderful fathers who are like pillars of support for their families, I say, if only I had that. But instead of complaining, I should be grateful for all the other things I have". In a 2009 interview with The Indian Express, she said she was not in touch with her father. Kaif says that her mother decided to "dedicate her life to social causes", which led to the family's relocation to a number of countries for varying lengths of time: Our transitions in growing up were--from Hong Kong where I was born, to China, then to Japan, and from Japan by boat to France ... After France, Switzerland--and I'm cutting out many East European countries where we were for only a few months each--then Poland in Krakow ... After that we went to Belgium, then to Hawaii, which was a short time, and then came to London. Due to their frequent relocation, Kaif and her siblings were home-schooled by a series of tutors. Although she is thought to have grown up in London, she lived there for only three years before moving to India. According to Kaif, she then changed her surname to her father's because she thought it would be easier to pronounce. Kaif's paternal parentage has been questioned by some members of the film industry. In a 2011 interview with Mumbai Mirror, Boom producer Ayesha Shroff accused Kaif of fabricating her history: "We created an identity for her. She was this pretty young English girl, and we gave her the Kashmiri father and thought of calling her Katrina Kazi. We thought we'd give her some kind of Indian ancestry, to connect with the audience ... But then we thought that Kazi sounded too ... religious? ... Mohammad Kaif was at the top, and so we said, Katrina Kaif sounds really great". Kaif called Shroff's comments "hurtful". In 2012, Kaif appeared in "Chikni Chameli", an item number in Agneepath that incorporated dance steps from the Lavani genre (a Maharashtrian folk dance). The song was filmed over a ten-day period and, according to the actress, "It was hard work. It was very fast and it was not a style I was used to, but I took it as a challenge". Kaif appeared next in Kabir Khan's espionage thriller Ek Tha Tiger as a Pakistani ISI agent who falls in love with an Indian RAW agent. Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express wrote about her performance: "Katrina is an able, animated foil to Salman, her long legs making her leaps and kicks credible". The film received predominantly positive reviews, with Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis calling it "smart and stylish". With worldwide earnings of Rs3.1 billion (US$47 million), Ek Tha Tiger was the highest-grossing Bollywood film of the year. That year Kaif also appeared with Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma in Yash Chopra's swan song, the romance Jab Tak Hai Jaan. About working with Chopra, she remarked that he "undoubtedly is the king of romance and I have always admired the way he presents his heroines. It was always a dream to work with him and the reality is even better". She played Meera, a woman who promises God to end her affair with her comatose lover if he survives. Although the film received mostly positive reviews, Kaif's performance had a mixed reception. CNN-IBN wrote: "Meera's role was a difficult one and Katrina falls short in emotional scenes. It seems Katrina still doesn't feel very easy in front of the camera and has difficulty with complex expressions". Commercially, the film proved a box-office hit with revenues of Rs2.11 billion (US$32 million) worldwide. In 2013, she appeared briefly with Aamir Khan in Vijay Krishna Acharya's action thriller Dhoom 3. To prepare for her role as a circus performer, she undertook a year-long regimen of Pilates, functional training and aerial straps. The film received ambivalent reviews and Kaif was criticised for taking on an insubstantial part. Earning Rs5.42 billion (US$83 million) in box-office receipts, Dhoom 3 went on to become the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time until it was surpassed by PK in 2014. Kaif's next appearance was in Siddharth Anand's Bang Bang! (2014), a remake of the 2010 action comedy Knight and Day. She played a bank receptionist who unwittingly gets caught up with a secret agent (Hrithik Roshan). Raja Sen of Rediff.com was disappointed with her performance, describing it as "insufferable". Although the film was commercially successful, financial analysts observed that it failed to meet box-office expectations. Ek Tha Tiger, Dhoom 3 and Bang Bang! still rank in the list of highest-grossing Indian films, while Jab Tak Hai Jaan still rank in the list of highest-grossing Indian films in overseas markets Kaif's sole appearance of 2015 was with Saif Ali Khan in Kabir Khan's post 26/11 counter-terrorism drama Phantom. In 2016, Kaif appeared in two films. In Abhishek Kapoor's Fitoor, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Kaif played a role based on Estella Havisham along with Aditya Roy Kapur and Tabu. Later that year she featured in Nitya Mehra's love story Baar Baar Dekho with Sidharth Malhotra. Both films were critical and commercial failures. In a review for the former, Namrata Joshi wrote: "Katrina is good so long as she has to just be herself. So she dances, smiles and flirts well, but the minute a dramatic scene comes up, her utter inadequacy as a performer shows." Next year, Kaif appeared alongside Ranbir Kapoor in Anurag Basu's comedy-adventure film Jagga Jasoos, which was released in 2017 after multiple delays. The film opened to mixed critical response and was a commercial disappointment. In the end of year, Kaif re-united with Salman Khan and reprised the role of Zoya in the Ali Abbas Zafar's action thriller film Tiger Zinda Hai, sequel to the 2012 film Ek Tha Tiger. The film released on Christmas weekend and opened to strong box office collections, collecting over Rs1.1 billion within three days of release. The film opened with positive to mixed reviews. Critics praised her action sequences but criticised her lack of dialogues. Rachit Gupta of Filmfare said, "The screenplay goes easy on [Kaif] by not giving her stand and dialogue. Instead, she does the bulk of the hand to hand combat and gun fights and she looks the part. It's invigorating to see a lady kick-ass with so much elan and pull all the punches like they're real." As of 2018, Kaif has filmed for the supportive role in the period action-adventure film Thugs of Hindostan, marking her second collaboration with Aamir Khan and director Vijay Krishna Acharya, also starring Amitabh Bachchan and Fatima Sana Shaikh. Kaif has also committed to star as an actress in Anand L Rai's Zero, marking her second collaboration with Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma, set to be released on 21 December 2018 during Christmas weekend. She has also been roped in for dance film ABCD 3, opposite Varun Dhawan. CANNOTANSWER

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