Dimple Kapadia

Dimple Kapadia (born 8 June 1957) is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Hindi films. She was discovered at age 14 by Raj Kapoor, who cast her in the title role of his teen romance Bobby (1973), to commercial success and wide public recognition. She married the Indian actor Rajesh Khanna in the same year and retired from acting. Kapadia returned to films in 1984, two years after her separation from Khanna. Her comeback film Saagar (1985) was released a year later, and revived her career. She won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress twice for Bobby and Saagar. She went on to establish herself as one of the leading actresses of Hindi cinema in the 1980s.

While her initial roles often relied on her perceived beauty and sex appeal, Kapadia was keen to avoid being stereotyped and to expand her range. She subsequently took on more serious parts in a range of film genres, from mainstream to parallel cinema, and received acclaim for her performances in such films as Kaash (1987), Drishti (1990), Lekin... (1991), and Rudaali (1993). For playing a professional mourner in the last of these, she won the National Film Award for Best Actress and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. She followed with supporting roles in Gardish (1993) and Krantiveer (1994), the latter of which garnered her a fourth Filmfare Award.

Kapadia has worked less frequently since the mid 1990s. She played a supporting part in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and was noted for her portrayal of a troubled middle-aged wife in the American production Leela (2002). Some of her later film credits include leading roles in Hum Kaun Hai? (2004), Pyaar Mein Twist (2005), Phir Kabhi (2008), Tum Milo Toh Sahi (2010) and What the Fish (2013), and supporting roles in Being Cyrus (2006), Luck by Chance (2009), Dabangg (2010), Cocktail (2012), Finding Fanny (2014), and Tenet (2020). Kapadia is the mother of Twinkle Khanna and Rinke Khanna, both former actresses.

Background and personal life
Dimple Kapadia was born on 8 June 1957 in Bombay (present-day Mumbai) to late Gujarati businessman Chunibhai Kapadia and his wife Bitti "Betty" (1939–2019). Chunibhai was from a wealthy Ismaili Khoja family, whose members had reportedly "embraced Hinduism" while still regarding Agha Khan as their religious mentor; Bitti was an Ismaili, too, and similarly followed Aga Khan. As an infant, Dimple was given the name Ameena (literally, "honest" or "trustworthy" in Arabic) by Aga Khan III, although she was never referred to by it. She is the eldest of four children; her siblings—all of whom have died—are sisters Simple (also an actress) and Reem, and a brother, Suhail.

The family resided in Santacruz, Bombay and she studied at St Joseph's Convent High School. She described herself as having matured quickly, often making older friends. She was 15 years old when she agreed to marry the actor Rajesh Khanna, then aged 30, after a short courtship. Having been a fan of Khanna, she later referred to the marriage as her "biggest high" during this period. The wedding, performed according to Arya Samaj rites, took place on 27 March 1973 in her father's bungalow in Juhu—six months before the release of her first film, Bobby. She retired from acting after marriage and gave birth to two daughters, Twinkle (born 1974) and Rinke (born 1977). Kapadia said it was Khanna who had forbidden her acting career following the marriage.

Kapadia separated from Khanna in April 1982, moving with her two daughters back to her parents' house. She returned to acting two years later. In a 1985 interview with India Today, she remarked, "The life and happiness in our house came to an end the day I and Rajesh got married," sharing her unhappy marital experience, including inequality and his infidelity, and calling their marriage "a farce". The hostility between Khanna and Kapadia subsided over the years; despite not having ever reunited, they were seen together at parties; she acted opposite him in his unreleased film Jai Shiv Shankar (1990) and even campaigned for his election. Asked in Filmfare in 2000 whether she would want to remarry, Kapadia replied, "I'm very happy and content... Once was more than enough." After Khanna's death in 2012, Kapadia said that his loss, along with the passing of her sister Simple and brother, left her feeling "truly abandoned". Her daughters also became actresses and retired after settling down. Her elder daughter, Twinkle, is married to the actor Akshay Kumar.

Kapadia is an art lover, and has experimented in painting and sculpture. In 1998, she started a new company, The Faraway Tree, which sells candles that she designs. Having been a candle enthusiast and finding candle-making therapeutic, she went on to develop this skill in Wales, where she took a workshop with Blackwood-based candle artist David Constable. Her business venture was reported in the press to have inspired other candle fans to start their own businesses of the sort. Her candles were presented and offered for sale at a number of exhibitions.

Debut (1973)
Kapadia, who was an avid movie viewer, aspired to be an actress even as a child, but her acting career was initiated by her father, who used to socialise with people from the film industry and frequented parties hosted by screenwriter Anjana Rawail. Due to his contacts, Dimple was almost assigned to play the younger version of Vyjayanthimala's character in H. S. Rawail's Sunghursh (1968), but was eventually dismissed as she looked older than the part called for. After turning down an offer to play the protagonist in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Guddi in 1970, another opportunity arose in 1971 when Raj Kapoor was looking for a young, new actress to play the lead in his planned teen romance. Munni Dhawan, a close friend of Kapoor's suggested that he consider Kapadia, having been acquainted with her father. Aged 14, she performed a screen test for the film in June that year on the sets of one of Kapoor's productions, and was cast in the part. The film was named Bobby and released in September 1973, by which time Kapadia was already married. It starred Kapoor's son Rishi Kapoor in his first leading role as Raj Nath, the son of a wealthy Hindu businessman, and Kapadia was given the title role of Bobby Braganza, the teenaged daughter of a Christian fisherman from Goa. The story follows the love affair between Raj and Bobby in the face of his parents' disapproval of their relationship due to class prejudice.

Bobby was a major mainstream success, and Kapadia was lauded for her performance, which won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (tied with Jaya Bhaduri for Abhimaan). Qurratulain Hyder of The Illustrated Weekly of India noted that she acted with "natural ease and freshness". Several of her lines in the film became popular, particularly, "Mujhse dosti karoge?" ("Will you be my friend?"), and the "miniskirts, midriff-baring polka dot shirts, and fabled red bikini" she wore made her a youth fashion icon of the times in India. Consequently polka-dotted dresses were often referred to as 'Bobby Print'. Bhawana Somaaya of The Hindu credits Kapadia with starting film memorabilia merchandising in the country, and Mukesh Khosla of The Tribune reported that Bobby established her as a "cult figure" as she led the fashion trends. In later years Kapadia would credit Raj Kapoor for her development as an actress: "The sum total of me today as an actress, whatever I am, is Raj Kapoor." In 2008, the web portal Rediff.com ranked her performance in the film as the fourth-best female debut of all-time in Hindi cinema: "An elfin little girl with big, lovely eyes, nobody quite portrayed innocence as memorably as Dimple in her first outing. She was candid, striking, and a true natural ... here was a girl who would redefine glamour and grace, and make it look very, very easy indeed."

1984–1989
Kapadia returned to acting in 1984, two years after her separation from Khanna in 1982, accrediting her decision with a personal need to prove to herself her own capabilities. Over the decade that followed, she would go on to become one of the leading actresses in Hindi cinema. The first film she worked on was Saagar, after a mutual friend had notified the director Ramesh Sippy about her willingness to return to acting. She considered her screen test for the film very unsuccessful as she was extremely nervous and "literally shivering" while performing it, but Sippy ultimately signed her on to play the lead part opposite her Bobby co-star Rishi Kapoor. The film was intended to be her comeback vehicle, but its one-year delay meant that several of her proceeding projects would be released before, the first of which was Zakhmi Sher (1984). Saagar eventually premiered in August 1985 and was controversial for several scenes featuring Kapadia, including one in which she was seen topless for a split second. The film was chosen as India's official entry to the 58th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Kapadia's performance as Mona D'Silva, a young Catholic woman from Goa who is torn between her friend (Kamal Haasan) and the man she loves (Kapoor), won her a second Best Actress award at the Filmfare Awards. A review by Asiaweek appreciated the film for its "polished narration and masterly technique" and labelled Kapadia "a delight". Rediff.com noted, "Dimple, caught between a friend and lover, performed solidly and memorably, grounding the two male leads and making the film work." A 1993 issue of India Today wrote: "Saagar was in many ways a paean to her incredible beauty. She looked ravishing: auburn hair, classical face, deep eyes, an aura of sensuality. It was clear she was back."

Other films released before Saagar included Manzil Manzil in 1984, as well as Aitbaar and Arjun in 1985. Kapadia had a role opposite Sunny Deol in Manzil Manzil, a drama directed by Nasir Hussain. While speaking of her positive experience during the making of the film, she expressed her lack of comfort performing the routine song-and-dance nature of the part. Her work was deemed "ineffective" by Trade Guide, and The Illustrated Weekly reported that her career prospects depended on how well her next projects would fare. Mukul Anand's Aitbaar was a Hitchcockian thriller for which she received positive reviews. She starred as Neha, a wealthy young woman whose greedy husband (played by Raj Babbar) plots to murder her. Discussing her performance, she said that during shooting she was "a bag of nerves", which eventually ended up benefitting her performance as her own state coincided with her character's inner turmoil. She was paired up with Sunny Deol for a second time in Arjun, an action film directed by Rahul Rawail and scripted by Javed Akhtar. It was her first commercial success since her return to films.

Feroz Khan's Janbaaz (1986) tells the story of a man fighting the drug menace. The film became known for its love scene involving Kapadia and male lead Anil Kapoor, in which the two share a full-on kiss, something Hindi movie-goers were not accustomed to in those days. In that same year she acted opposite Saagar co-star Kamal Haasan in her first regional film, Vikram, a Tamil-language sci-fi feature. She played the minor part of Inimaasi, a young princess who falls for the title character, played by Haasan. In 1987, she appeared in two action films which did well with audiences: Rajkumar Kohli's Insaniyat Ke Dushman and Mukul Anand's Insaaf. The latter saw her play the dual role of a dancer and a physician. At that time, she also worked in numerous Hindi films made by producers from South India, including Pataal Bhairavi, which she detested. She has confessed to accepting these roles for financial gain rather than artistic merit during this period, noting: "I shudder even now when I think of those films. As an artiste I got totally corrupted."

In 1987, she played Pooja in Mahesh Bhatt's marital drama Kaash. Kapadia and Jackie Shroff starred as an estranged couple who, during a relentless legal battle over the custody of their only son, learn that the boy is suffering from brain tumour, which makes them reunite to spend the last months of his life as a family. Before shooting began, she called it "the most serious artistic challenge I have ever faced in my career." Bhatt said he decided to cast her in the part because he was aware of her own marital experience, and he noted that during the making of the film she "came closer and closer to the naked truth", so much that "after a certain point, mentally I couldn't differentiate between Dimple and Pooja. She became the character." Kapadia's performance as Pooja was highly praised by critics. Pritish Nandy, the editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, wrote, "Dimple achieves the impossible. Bereft of her glitzy make-up, glamour and filmi mannerisms, she comes alive as never before: beautiful, sensitive, intense. You almost feel you've discovered a new actress on the screen." In an article discussing her career's best roles, The Times of India wrote, "As ... [a] long-suffering wife who tries making a living for herself and her young son by working odd jobs, Dimple showed immense strength as a performer. This has to be one of her best and most unrecognised performances." Sukanya Verma noted, "She rendered her Pooja with stoic determination and touching vulnerability making her character extremely believable and sympathetic at once."

In Zakhmi Aurat (1988), Kapadia played Kiran Dutt, a police officer who is subject to gang rape and, when the judicial system fails to convict the criminals, unites with other rape victims to castrate the rapists in revenge. A financial success, the film opened to a polarised reaction from critics and further attracted wide coverage for its lengthy and brutal rape scene involving Kapadia. Khalid Mohamed of The Times of India noted Kapadia's "power packed performance" but criticised the rape sequence as "utter lasciviousness" and "vulgarity spattering through the screen". Feminist magazine Manushi panned its low cinematic quality, including the absurdity of the action scenes and the "ugly kind of titillation" in the rape scene, but believed Kapadia brought "a conviction to her role that is rare among Bombay heroines" with a performance that is "low key, moving and charming without being at all clinging or seductive". Kapadia worked with Rajkumar Kohli in two more movies in 1988: the action drama Saazish and the horror film Bees Saal Baad, a remake of the 1962 film of the same name. She was the action star Bijli in Mera Shikar, a revenge saga directed by Keshu Ramsay, playing a once joyous young woman who trains in martial arts to punish a notorious gangster for the crimes inflicted upon her sister. The film was described as an "extraordinarily adroit entertainer" by Subhash K. Jha, who preferred it over the "sleazy sensationalism" of Zakhmi Aurat and noted the "unusual restraint" with which Bijli's transformation was achieved.

In 1989, Kapadia appeared as Jackie Shroff's love interest in Ram Lakhan, a crime drama directed by Subhash Ghai. The film was a success with both critics and audiences, becoming the second-highest grossing Hindi film of the year and earning eight nominations at the 35th Filmfare Awards. She played a courtesan turned vengeful other woman in Pati Parmeshwar, which was released following a well-publicised two-year court battle with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). The film was initially banned from screening by the CBFC for its perceived glorification of submissiveness of women through the character of the forgiving wife who is in "ignoble servility" of her husband. Other films starring Kapadia that year include Babbar Subhash's Pyar Ke Naam Qurbaan, opposite Mithun Chakraborty, and J. P. Dutta's action picture Batwara, opposite Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna.

1990s
In the 1990s, Kapadia started venturing more into arthouse films, known in India as parallel cinema, later citing an "inner yearning to exhibit my best potential". Those films include Drishti (1990), Lekin... (1991), Rudaali (1993) and Antareen (1993). Drishti, a marital drama directed by Govind Nihalani, starred Kapadia and Shekhar Kapur as a married couple from Mumbai's intellectual milieu and followed their trials and tribulations, extramarital affairs, divorce, and ultimate reconciliation after years of separation. Kapadia recounted her full emotional involvement in the part of the protagonist, career-woman Sandhya; for her critically acclaimed performance, she was named the Best Actress (Hindi) of the year by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association. The author Subramani labelled Kapadia as "an actress with hidden resources" and appreciated her "intelligent portrayal", through which Sandhya emerged as "vulnerable and intense and full of feminine wiles". A review in The Indian Express referred to her performance as "sensitive", presuming that her own separation might have contributed to her understanding of the part. The film was acknowledged as the Best Hindi Film of that year at the 38th National Film Awards, and Frontline magazine suggested that Kapadia should have earned the Best Actress award at the same function.

Based on Rabindranath Tagore's short story Hungry Stones (1895), Gulzar's romantic mystery Lekin... starred Kapadia as a restless spirit seeking liberation, Reva, who haunts an ancient palace and appears intermittently in the presence of an architect throughout his work visit in Rajasthan. Kapadia has often cited this role as a personal favourite and the pinnacle of her career, and wished it would have had more screen time in the film. To make her character more truthful, Gulzar forbid Kapadia to blink during filming, trying to capture an "endless, fixed gaze" which would give her "a feeling of being surreal". Lekin... was popular with critics, and Kapadia's performance earned her a third Filmfare nomination. Subhash K. Jha described Reva as "the essence of evanescence" and took note of the "intense tragedy" with which Kapadia played the part.

In 1991, Kapadia played a young widow in the military drama Prahaar, the first directorial venture of the actor Nana Patekar, with whom she would collaborate in several other films. The film, co-starring Patekar and Madhuri Dixit, received a welcome reception from critics. Kapadia and Dixit agreed to act without wearing makeup upon Patekar's insistence that they appear natural on screen. While the actresses were noted for their work, most of the praise went to Patekar. Further critical attention came her way when she played a principled office receptionist opposite Sunny Deol in the action film Narsimha. Kapadia starred alongside Amitabh Bachchan in the fantasy Ajooba, a big-budgeted Indo-Russian co-production jointly directed by Shashi Kapoor and Gennady Vasilyev. Based on Arabian mythology and set in the fictional Afghan kingdom of Baharistan, the film saw her in the role of Rukhsana, a young woman who arrives from India to rescue her father, court magician Ameer Baba, from prison. The critical response to Ajooba was mostly lukewarm, and it failed to attract viewers in Indian cinemas despite success in the Soviet Union. In Haque (1991), a political drama directed by Harish Bhosle and scripted by Mahesh Bhatt, she enacted Varsha B. Singh, a Hindu Orthodox woman who is married to an influential politician and who miscarries a pregnancy following a criminal assault. The story follows how Varsha defies her husband after years of subservience when, for political reasons, he refuses to take legal action against the assailants. The author Ram Awatar Agnihotri noted her for playing the character bravely and convincingly.

Maarg, her second project under Mahesh Bhatt's direction, was delayed for several years before its eventual straight-to-video release in late 1992. The film dealt with power politics within an ashram and featured Kapadia as Uma, a prostitute working by choice. The critic Iqbal Masood considered it "a powerful satire" with "excellent performances". Such was the intensity of enacting the character that it left her close to a breakdown after shooting ended, according to Bhatt. She next played Barkha, a single woman who abandons her premarital daughter upon birth, in Hema Malini's directorial debut Dil Aashna Hai (1992). In Shashilal K. Nair's Angaar (1992), a crime drama based on the life of an underworld don, she played Mili, a homeless orphan collected by an unemployed man, played by Jackie Shroff. Angaar received positive reviews from critics, as did Kapadia's performance, but it was financially unsuccessful. Meena Iyer of The Times of India, who called it "one of the most engaging mafia films to have come out of Bollywood", attributed the film's limited audience to its dark proceedings.

In 1993, Kapadia won the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in Rudaali, a drama directed by Kalpana Lajmi and adapted from Mahasweta Devi's short story of the same name. She played the central character of Shanichari, a lonely and hardened Assamese village woman who, throughout a lifetime of misfortune, has never cried and is now challenged with a new job as a professional mourner. The citation for the award described her performance as a "compelling interpretation of the tribulations of a lonely woman ravaged by a cruel society". In a positive review, Chidananda Dasgupta wrote for Cinemaya of the limitations faced by actors in mainstream films and linked them to her performance: "Dimple Kapadia has enough experience of [the commercial cinema] convention to be able to use some of its elements and enough understanding of acting techniques to create a real person. She is thus able to make her Shanichari both larger than life and believable." Aside from a third Filmfare nomination for Best Actress for the role, she won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress, and was acknowledged with Best Actress honours at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival and the International Film Festival in Damascus. Accepted with enthusiasm by critics and moviegoers, Rudaali was India's submission to the 66th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2010 Filmfare magazine included her work in the film in their list of "80 Iconic Performances".

Another Filmfare nomination for Kapadia came that year for her supporting role as Shanti, a street prostitute whose husband and child were burnt alive, in the Priyadarshan-directed crime drama Gardish. An adaptation of the 1989 Malayalam film Kireedam, the film starred Jackie Shroff and Amrish Puri and was met with approval by critics and the public alike. The Indian Express praised the film's "script, vivid characters and powerful dialogues", and noted Kapadia's ability to command audience attention. Mrinal Sen's 1993 Bengali drama Antareen, adapted from Saadat Hasan Manto's short story Badshahat ka Khatama (1950), was the first non-Hindi project Kapadia took part in since Vikram (1986). She played a woman caught in a loveless marriage. Insisting on playing her part spontaneously, Kapadia refused to enrol in a crash-course in Bengali as she felt that she would be able to speak it convincingly. Her voice was eventually dubbed by Anushua Chatterjee, a decision Kapadia was unhappy with. Antareen was received well and was named the Best Bengali Film at the 41st National Film Awards,  but Kapadia, dissatisfied with the outcome, dismissed it as "a poor film". In 1994, Kapadia portrayed the journalist Meghna Dixit, a rape victim who persuades an alcoholic and unemployed village man to be a champion of justice for those around him, alongside Nana Patekar in Mehul Kumar's Krantiveer. An economic success, the film emerged as India's third-highest grossing picture of the year. For her performance, Kapadia received her fourth Filmfare Award, this time in the Best Supporting Actress category.

After Antareen, Kapadia was reportedly expected to work in more independent films, but she took a three-year hiatus from acting, later explaining that she was "emotionally exhausted". She returned to commercial cinema in 1997, playing Amitabh Bachchan's wife in that same year's Mrityudaata, once again under Mehul Kumar's direction. The film was a critical and commercial failure, with India Today panning its "comic book-level storytelling". The trade journal Film Information declared that Kapadia had "no role worth her" talent, and she herself shared similar sentiments. Her next release was the murder mystery 2001: Do Hazaar Ek (1998), which was ultimately rejected by the audience despite a stronger opening. She appeared opposite Jackie Shroff in Laawaris (1999), in a role not allowing her "much to do except scream", according to Hindustan Times, with Rediff.com's Sharmila Taliculam criticising the film for its formulaic script and lack of originality. This was followed by her final feature of the decade, Hum Tum Pe Marte Hain, in which she played the part of Devyani Chopra, the strict mother of a wealthy family. Subhash K. Jha called the film an "embarrassment", while Suparn Verma gave a scathing review of Kapadia's performance, noting she "wears a permanent scowl" throughout the film.

2000s
In Kapadia's first film of the millennium, she co-starred in Farhan Akhtar's directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai (2001). Depicting the contemporary routine life of Indian affluent youth, it is set in modern-day urban Mumbai and focuses on a major period of transition in the lives of three young friends (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna). Kapadia played the role of Tara Jaiswal, a middle-aged alcoholic woman, an interior designer by profession, and a divorcee who is not allowed to meet with her daughter. The film presents her story through the character of Siddharth (Khanna), a much younger man whom she befriends and who ultimately falls deeply in love with her. She said making the picture was an enriching experience and called her part "a role to die for". Critics lauded Dil Chahta Hai as a groundbreaking film for its realistic portrayal of Indian youth. The film performed well in the big cities but failed in the rural areas, which was attributed by critics to the urban-oriented lifestyle depicted in the movie. Saibal Chatterjee, in a review for Hindustan Times, noted, "Dimple Kapadia, in a brief, somewhat underdeveloped role, presents a poignant study of loneliness."

In 2002, Kapadia portrayed the title role in the drama Leela, an American production directed by Somnath Sen and co-starring Deepti Naval, Vinod Khanna and Amol Mhatre. Kapadia's part—written specially for her—is that of a forty-year-old married woman and a Mumbai University professor, who, after the death of her mother, loses her sense of happiness and takes a job as a visiting professor of South Asian studies in California. The story follows Leela's acclimation to her new surroundings and particularly her relationship with one of her students there, Kris (Mhatre), a young Indian-American man. Kapadia was highly nervous during the making of the film but believed the tension helped elevate her acting. The film was reviewed favourably by a number of American critics, among whom Maitland McDonagh from TV Guide wrote, "Dimple Kapadia shines in this family melodrama ... [her] intelligent, nuanced performance is the film's highlight." Reviews in India were similarly approving of Leela and Kapadia's work.

In 2004, she played the lead role of army wife Sandra Williams in Hum Kaun Hai?, a supernatural thriller. The film opened to a mixed critical reception, but critics believed Kapadia's performance and charismatic presence enhanced an otherwise weak script. 2005 saw Kapadia and Rishi Kapoor reunite as a lead couple for the third time after Bobby (1973) and Saagar (1985) in Pyaar Mein Twist. They starred as two middle-aged single parents who fall in love and later have to deal with the reaction of their children. The film generated mostly negative reviews, but critics concurred that the chemistry between the lead pair was sufficient enough of a reason to watch it, acknowledging the nostalgic value of the pairing. Few people went to see the film; within two weeks it was declared a flop.

In 2006, Kapadia co-starred with Saif Ali Khan and Naseeruddin Shah in the black comedy Being Cyrus, an English-language independent feature and the directorial debut of Homi Adajania. She enacted the part of Katy Sethna, Shah's neurotic and unfaithful wife who runs an affair with Cyrus (played by Khan), a young drifter who enters their house as an assistant. The film was received well at a number of film festivals before its theatrical release in India, upon which it was embraced by critics and audiences, making a considerable profit against its small budget. Though the BBC's Poonam Joshi stated that "the descent into despair of Dimple Kapadia's Katy is enthralling", other critics such as Derek Elley from Variety and Shradha Sukumaran from Mid Day criticised her for excessively overacting. She next played a wealthy Brahmin woman whose daughter falls for a man of a lower caste in the mystical love story Banaras (2006).

In V. K. Prakash's romance Phir Kabhi (2008), Kapadia and Mithun Chakraborty played ageing people who meet at a school reunion and rekindle their high-school romance. The film was awarded seven prizes at the Los Angeles Reel Film Festival, including the Best Film Award at the Narrative Feature section. It was released a year later direct-to-video and, at the same time, was the first Hindi film to be distributed via pay-per-view direct-to-home (DTH) platforms. At the request of her son-in-law Akshay Kumar, she voiced the character of Devi, the mother of the elephant Jumbo (voiced by Kumar) in the animated feature Jumbo (2008), a remake of the 2006 Thai computer animation Khan Kluay.

Kapadia was cast in Zoya Akhtar's first directorial venture, Luck by Chance (2009), a satirical take on the Hindi film industry. She played the part of Neena Walia, an erstwhile superstar—referred to in the film as "a crocodile in a chiffon saree"—who struggles to launch her young daughter in the movie business. Kapadia was approached for the part because it required an actress who was a mainstream leading lady in the past. Akhtar noted Kapadia's edgy portrayal, with the fickle nature of the character played between two extremes of either "warm, soft sunshine" or "hard, cold, steely". Luck By Chance opened to a warm critical response, though its financial income was modest. Critics were appreciative of Kapadia's performance, which earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at Filmfare. Deepa Karmalkar from Screen characterised her as "gloriously bitchy", while Avijit Ghosh of The Times of India believed that Kapadia had delivered "one of her most nuanced performances" in a character he found to be "a rare kind of Hindi film mother", who is "hawk-eyed, tough as nails but vainglorious, and in a strange way, vulnerable as well".

2010s
In 2010, Kapadia played the small part of Salman Khan's asthmatic mother in Dabangg (2010), which emerged as the most popular film of the year in India as well as the second-highest grossing Hindi film of all-time up to that point. Reviews for Kapadia were mixed, with Shubhra Gupta dismissing her as "laughably wrong" and Blessy Chettiar of Daily News and Analysis likening her character to "the mothers in Hindi cinema of yore, self-sacrificing, torn between relationships, slightly over-the-top, likeable nevertheless". Tum Milo Toh Sahi, released the same year, was a romantic comedy in which she starred as Delshad Nanji, a Parsi woman in charge of an Irani café, who falls in love with a man played by Nana Patekar. Kapadia employed a Parsi accent for the role and, while preparing for it, visited several Irani cafés in Mumbai to understand their cultural basics and get into the mood of the character. The film opened to average reviews, but her performance received generally positive feedback. Anupama Chopra was critical of her character, believing it "veers into caricature", but wrote that Kapadia "plays her with affection and energy and at least has some fun doing it". Kapadia's only film of 2011 was Nikhil Advani's Patiala House, a sports film revolving around cricket in which she was cast as Rishi Kapoor's wife and her son in-law, Akshay Kumar's mother. Kapadia acted in her first Malayalam-language film, Bombay Mittayi in 2011, for which she started learning the language. She played the wife of a celebrated Ghazal singer, played by Amar Singh, on whose behest she was offered the part. Kapadia collaborated with Homi Adajania twice more in 2012 and 2014, in Cocktail and Finding Fanny, respectively, to critical and commercial success. The romantic comedy Cocktail saw her play Saif Ali Khan's loud Punjabi mother, Kavita Kapoor, a role to which Aniruddha Guha of Daily News and Analysis referred as a "veritable treat". Believing that Adajania is a director capable of bringing the best in her, Kapadia expressed interest in the satirical road movie Finding Fanny when she was exposed to the script while filming Cocktail. She played Rosalina "Rosie" Eucharistica, a conceited but well-meaning woman who joins her late son's widow (Deepika Padukone) on a road trip across Goa, a role for which she was required to wear a heavy prosthetic posterior. She earned a fourth Best Supporting Actress nomination at Filmfare for her portrayal; Rachel Saltz of The New York Times wrote that Kapadia "inhabits and enhances her role" and "steers clear of caricature and even milks some humor out of the unfunny script".

In 2013, Kapadia played the protagonist in the comedy What the Fish, portraying Sudha Mishra, an irate Delhi-based divorcee who begrudgingly entrusts her niece with the responsibility of taking care of her house while she is away visiting her son. She was enthusiastic about the part, feeling challenged to portray its different traits. Reviews of both the film and Kapadia's work were mixed. The Times of India panned the film's script for making "Kapadia's tryst with comedy seem loud and forced", and Raja Sen deemed her character "possibly the most forgettable role of her career". Sarita A. Tanwar of Daily News and Analysis, on the other hand, considered the film "a rather audacious entertaining attempt" and felt Kapadia was "in top form", with similarly positive comments written by Subhash K. Jha. For the rest of the decade, Kapadia returned to film only twice for two minor roles in the action comedies Welcome Back (2015) and Dabangg 3 (2019). She played a conwoman in Anees Bazmee's Welcome Back along with an ensemble cast led by Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar. Mihir Fadnavis of Hindustan Times described her role as an "embarrassing, extended cameo" but Rajeev Masand took note of her "droll" presence. Dabangg 3, the third instalment of what had become the Dabangg film series and a prequel of the first, saw her briefly reprise the role of Naina Devi after a four-year hiatus.

2020s
In her first film of the decade, Kapadia appeared alongside Irrfan Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan in her fourth endeavor under Homi Adajania's direction, the comedy-drama Angrezi Medium (2020). A spiritual sequel to the 2017 film Hindi Medium, the film was theatrically released in India on 13 March amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected its commercial performance due to the closing of the cinemas. Initial plans for a re-release were cancelled and it was made available digitally less than a month later. She played a strict store owner and Kapoor Khan's mother, a role Vinayak Chakravorty, writing for Outlook, thought was "used to highlight loneliness among the aged" but believed could have been stronger. Kapadia next played Priya, an arms dealer in Christopher Nolan's spy thriller Tenet. Her screen test for the role was shot in 2019 by Adajania before filming for Angrezi Medium began. The film opened amid the pandemic to a wide audience around the world and, having grossed $353million worldwide, became the fourth-highest grossing film of 2020. Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times wrote that she "quietly steals every scene she's in" and Guy Lodge of Variety opined that she had given the film's "wiliest performance".

, Kapadia's future projects include Ayan Mukerji's action fantasy Brahmāstra, Dinesh Vijan's untitled comedy, and Ali Abbas Zafar's Amazon Prime political web series Dilli.

Media image and artistry
When Kapadia made her comeback to movies, she faced constant comparison to her Bobby days, and struggled to be taken seriously as an actress. According to Jyotika Virdi, the author of the book The Cinematic Imagination, while Kapadia's trajectory is different from that of other female Hindi film stars, she "turned every disadvantage to her advantage". Virdi mentioned Kapadia's forthright manner as having a major contribution to her career: "Speaking candidly to the press, she and the reporters plotted her life's narrative from the innocent teenager snared into an impossible marriage to the emergence of a mature 'woman with experience.'" Kapadia is known for her assertive and moody nature; during the making of Janbaaz (1986), the director Feroz Khan remarked that he had never met a woman with her levels of "pent-up aggression". The journalist Bhawana Somaaya, who conducted a series of interviews with her during the 1980s, stated: "She's a strange bundle of contradictions. Her moods change in a jiffy." According to some critics, this approach has sometimes been at the cost of professional opportunities as "her unpredictable nature and moods have distanced many well wishers". In reply to this, she said: "I am moody by nature. But I have never consciously hurt anyone."



Virdi noted Kapadia for "fighting her way to the top" by committing to serious and challenging work, with her parts in Aitbaar (1985), Kaash (1987) and Drishti (1990) being characters where she "drew from the well of her own experience". The author Dinesh Raheja believed that Kapadia's involvement in art films happened at a time when she was no longer willing to play the "pretty prop in hero-oriented films", arguing that her new choices "honed Dimple's talent for lending fine striations to complex emotions". Speaking of the same, Mahesh Bhatt commended her for not turning into "a victim of her own success" by refusing to appear in films of strictly commercial value. According to Govind Nihalani, the director of Drishti (1990), Kapadia has a genuine interest in serious work that would challenge her talent and realise her potential. Similar sentiments were shared by Shashi Kapoor, who said she had always been eager to act in quality films. She explained her involvement in independent films as a conscious decision to experiment in different cinema and prove her abilities. When questioned about the hiatus she assumed after Rudaali at her career peak, she spoke of the space she needed, stating that generally "career has always been secondary" to her. Due to her infrequent work ever since, as manifest in numerous gaps between her screen appearances, she has gained a reputation for being selective about her work. She attributed this to the lack of worthy offers and the "huge effort" expended in film acting, which consumes time otherwise spent for her family and private life. Guided by her own judgement, Kapadia normally commits to a project without seeking advice, and often willingly works with young or first-time directors, finding their enthusiasm and creativity beneficial to both the film and her performance.

Kapadia's screen image has been characterized in terms of her perceived beauty and sex appeal. The Times of India wrote in reference her role in Saagar: "Dimple was a vision of lush beauty; quite the forbidden fruit, rising from the ocean like Aphrodite emerging from the waves and surf." Speaking of her post-comeback screen persona, the critic Khalid Mohamed observed, "Her arsenal comprised, among other elements, expressive cognac eyes, a nuanced, resonating voice skilled in Hindustani dialogue delivery, easy body language, and that seductive toss of her auburn hair." Mrinal Sen, who directed her in Antareen (1993), compared her to Sophia Loren and described her face as "a landscape of desolation". Anil Kapoor, her costar of Janbaaz, hailed her as "the most beautiful woman on screen since Madhubala". According to Dinesh Raheja, Kapadia's casting in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) and Leela (2002), in which she played middle-aged women who are the object of younger men's desire, served as "a kind of tribute to her eternal beauty".

Critics have been appreciative of her acting prowess, and some have analysed it in relation to her appearance. Ranjan Das Gupta calls her "an instinctive actress, spontaneous and intelligent" who plays best "intense characters", but he notes that her beauty is "her asset as well as limitation". In 1988, Subhash K. Jha wrote that "besides her elastic and primeval looks," she "possesses an inbuilt instinct for grasping characters at a level way beyond the surface". While working with her on Kaash (1987), Mahesh Bhatt remarked that Kapadia had been through so much in her private life that she need not study method acting to play real women. Academic writers Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita of the feminist magazine Manushi noted Kapadia for being unafraid to look less attractive for the benefit of convincingly expressing anguish and emotion. M.L. Dhawan from The Tribune commented, "All those who have been following Dimple Kapadia's career from Bobby, Lekin and Rudaali will assert that she is more talented than glamorous." Kapadia has described herself as a "spontaneous actor who is guided by instinct" and—on another occasion—"a competent actress yet to deliver her best".