This actress, all of 17 years, defeated Katrina Kaif, Alia Bhatt, Yami Gautam, Shraddha Kapoor to win IIFA Award 2025

The 25th edition of IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) Awards were held on March 8 and 9 in Jaipur. While the first day saw IIFA Digital Awards 2025 being held for the first time in which the films and series that streamed in the Hindi OTT space in 2024 were honoured, the second day celebrated the Hindi films released in theatres last year.

Alia Bhatt, Shraddha Kapoor, Yami Gautam, Katrina Kaif were nominated for Best Actress for their amazing performances in Jigra, Stree 2, Article 370, and Merry Christmas, respectively. However, it was the 17-year-old Nitanshi Goel who defeated them to take home the Best Actress trophy for her superlative performance in Laapataa Ladies.

Born on June 12, 2007, Nitanshi has worked as a child artiste in multiple TV shows such as Ishqbaaaz, Thapki Pyar Ki, and Peshwa Bajirao. She made her Bollywood debut as Phool Kumari in the 2024 film Laapataa Ladies, which was also sent as India's official entry for the Academy Award for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars 2025 but failed to make it to the shortlist.

In an interview last year, Nitanshi had shared that she was shooting Laapataa Ladies when she was in her 9th standard and missed her Class 11 exams to promote the film. Talking to the YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, the actress said, "I have gotten very supportive friends and teachers. Because my promotions were going on, so I could not take my final exams. I took them later for 11th standard. During the exam, a teacher came to me and said, 'You've done such good work!'. The invigilator, who was there, said, 'Listen, let her complete her exam then we all will get a chance to talk to her, click selfies with her and tell her how good she was.' They all somewhere have rooted for me. I couldn’t tell them what exactly was the film I was doing earlier, but now that they’ve watched it. I hope they're proud of me. I’m now in class 12, studying commerce, and I’ll of course give the board exams, which will be next year."

 

 

 

 

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Apart from Nitanshi Goel winning Best Actress, Laapataa Ladies won 9 other awards at the IIFA Awards 2025. The Aamir Khan production won Best Picture, Best Director to Kiran Rao, Best Supporting Actor to Ravi Kishan, Best Original Story, Best Female Debut to Pratibha Ranta, Best Music Director to Ram Sampath, Best Lyrics to Prashant Pandey for Sajni, Best Screenplay to Sneha Desai, and Best Editing to Jabeen Merchant.