Alia Advani (born 31 July 1992), known professionally as Kiara Advani, is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Hindi films. After making her film debut with the 2014 poorly received comedy Fugly, Advani had her first commercial success with a brief role in the 2016 sports biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story. Her career advanced with starring roles in the Telugu political drama Bharat Ane Nenu (2018) as well as the Hindi romantic drama Kabir Singh and the comedy Good Newwz (both 2019).
Kiara Advani was born to Jagdeep Advani, a Sindhi Hindu businessman and Genevieve Jaffrey, a teacher whose father was a Muslim from Lucknow and mother was a Christian of Scottish, Irish, Portuguese, and Spanish ancestry; and had a Bengali godmother. Born as Alia Advani, Advani changed her first name to Kiara prior to the release of her first film, Fugly. Kiara was quoted as saying that it was Salman Khan's suggestion to change her name from Alia to Kiara, as Alia (Bhatt) was already up and coming at the time. In an interview to Filmfare in 2019, Kiara Advani said that the name "Kiara" was inspired from Priyanka Chopra's character of Kiara in the film Anjaana Anjaani. The elder of two siblings, Advani has a younger brother, Mishaal. She is also related to several celebrities via her maternal family. Actors Ashok Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey are her step-great-grandfather and great-uncle, respectively, whereas model Shaheen Jaffrey is her aunt.