Soni Razdan

Razdan was born in Birmingham, UK, to Gertrude Hoelzer, a German woman, and Narendra Nath Razdan, a Kashmiri Pandit. She is the mother of Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt.[3][4][5][6]

Razdan started her career in English theatre with John Fowler's The Collector and her Hindi stage career with Bund Darvaze, Satyadev Dubey's adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit.

Her photos were seen by Franco Zeffirelli who wanted to cast her as Mary in his miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth. The role, however, was given to Olivia Hussey and Razdan was cast as a young grieving mother as well as appearing as an extra in other scenes.[7]

She appeared as Sulochana in the hit Doordarshan TV series Buniyaad. She also acted in Indian TV serials Saahil, Gaatha and has been a regular on Indian television.[8] In 2002, she turned to direction with Aur Phir Ek Din on Star Plus, a take-off on One Fine Day starring Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney.[8]

She has also acted in Bollywood movies. Razdan directed a film called Love Affair that was expected to be released in 2016, but did not.[9][10][11] She acted in Meghna Gulzar's Raazi which also starred her daughter Alia in the lead role. This was the first time when she shared the screen with Alia where she played the character of Alia's mother.[12] Soni played the lead role in the film Yours Truly where she portrayed the character of a lonely middle-aged government employee Mithi Kumar.[13]

Razdan married film director Mahesh Bhatt on 20 April 1986.

She is the mother of Shaheen Bhatt (born 28 November 1988) actress Alia Bhatt (born 15 March 1993), step mother of Pooja Bhatt & Rahul Bhatt and the aunt of Emraan Hashmi.[14]

• Soni Razdan on IMDb