Shahid, Alia bag Best Actor awards at IIFA 2017
It was a double whammy for the Abhishek Chaubey directed movie Udta Punjab at the 18th edition of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards 2017 in New Jersey as lead actors Shahid Kapoor and Alia Bhatt walked away with the coveted Best Actor/Actress trophies.
Kapoor, who wowed audiences with a spirited performance during the evening, was lauded for the “path breaking” portrayal of drug addled Punjabi rockstar Jimmy, which he admitted was a “scary and risky movie for any mainstream actor to do.” Accompanied by his wife Mira, whom he thanked for “being his lucky charm,” Kapoor stressed on the importance of doing movies like these which highlighted the problems of drug abuse among youngsters.
For Alia Bhatt, who was attending IIFA for the first time, it was also a double whammy as she kickstarted the evening’s proceedings with a highly energetic set that saw her take a lap around the stadium with her backup dancers – an act that got the crowds hysterical.
She also won the Best Icon Award for her style sense, quickly attributing her fashion choices to her mentor Karan Johar who was hosting the show alongwith Saif Ali Khan. The duo kept up their high-energy act through the night doing what Bollywood is known to do best – poke fun at itself.
Neerja was adjudged Best Film and the Best Director gong went to Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury for Pink, a movie that saw Taapsee Pannu teach an entire nation the universal chant that “no means no”.
For her powerful portrayal of a new age liberated Indian woman, forced to fight a system intent to label her for her lifestyle choices, she won the IIFA Woman of the Year Award.
While the crowd favourite Varun Dhawan won Best Comic Performance for Dishoom, Jim Sarbh walked away with Best Negative Performance for his portrayal of the terrorist in Neerja.
The Supporting Actors trophies went to Shabana Azmi for Neerja and Anupam Kher for MS Dhoni.
A.R. Rahman who had rocked the arena the previous night was lauded for completing 25 years in the film industry. With the fans cheering on their favourite stars at every juncture, it was almost as if the heart of Bollwood was beating at MetLife Stadium on Saturday night.
The event which went into the wee hours of Sunday saw performances by Katrina Kaif, Varun Dhawan, Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon, Shahid Kapoor, and of course Salman Khan, who brought the evening or the morning to a close with his peppy act.
Whether you were a Salman fan or not, there was no getting away from the fact that here was a superstar who just had to sway his body a bit for the crowd to go into raptures.