Aditya Chopra’s 2000 hit romantic drama Mohabbatein was headlined by Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Aishwarya Rai, but it also introduced six new talents as part of the supporting cast. One of them was his younger brother Uday Chopra. After assisting his father and legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra on films like Lamhe (1991), Darr (1993), and Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), and his brother on his 1995 seminal directorial debut Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Uday Chopra became the first actor in his family of filmmakers.
However, after a failed career as a leading man with duds like Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai (2002), Neal ‘n’ Nikki (2005), and Pyaar Impossible! (2010), which he also wrote the screenplay of, Uday’s identity as an actor got severely limited to reprising the role of the funny sidekick Ali to Abhishek Bachchan’s Jai Dixit in the Dhoom franchise. Also, he never got the opportunity to work outside of his family’s production house Yash Raj Films.
But the eagle-eyed internet was surprised to see Uday Chopra’s name in the credits of an upcoming YRF movie — that too, not as an actor or producer. He’s been credited for writing the story of Shiv Rawail’s spy thriller Alpha, headlined by Alia Bhatt, Sharvari, and Bobby Deol, which is slated to release in cinemas on July 3. That makes Uday a part of Aditya’s ambitious YRF Spy Universe, after years of staying under the radar. So, the question that’s been on everyone’s mind — Where has Uday Chopra been all these years?
Uday Chopra went to Hollywood
Back in 2010, Uday Chopra was betting big on his 2010 romantic comedy Pyaar Impossible! opposite Priyanka Chopra, which he wrote and produced under YRF, and was directed by his Mohabbatein co-star Jugal Hansraj. But after the film failed at the box office, he knew he wanted to do something other than acting. Little did he know that a nudge from his brother would make him tread the same path that his co-star Priyanka would dominate in the years to come — Hollywood.
Uday Chopra in Pyaar Impossible!.
“When I decided in 2010 that I wanted to do something different apart from acting, Adi said, ‘Have you thought of expanding YRF and making Hollywood films?’ I wasn’t sure how to go about, but he believed in me, and said if you want to do it, then find a way. I realised sitting in India it’s not going to happen,” Uday said in a 2014 interview with DNA.
Uday relocated to Los Angeles, California and started from the scratch by enrolling himself for a production workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Adi told me there are no rules. YRF has a set of rules that we follow here, but in Hollywood you are a small fish, and you have to follow their rules. He told me just be open to everything and do whatever it takes to make that movie you want,” recalled Uday.
Although Uday had been actively involved as a producer on films like Yeh Dillagi (1994), Mohabbatein, Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (2002), and Veer-Zaara (2004), he thought that he’d always stay under the tall shadows of both his father and his brother, when it comes to filmmaking. “No matter how much success I get, I will never be able to cross what my father and brother have done. So, it excited me personally in a way that (Hollywood) is a space that’s completely mine and my work whether it works or not would be on my credit,” argued Uday.
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While Aditya had his back, Yash Chopra had his share of reservations. Uday recalled, “My father thought I was stupid to do this; he said you are going to a place where nobody knows you and it’s a competitive market where everyone is throwing huge amounts of money around, why are you doing this when you can do a lot more and bigger stuff in India?”
But Uday did manage to get a foot in the door of Hollywood. In 2014, he co-produced two films — Olivier Dahan’s Grace of Monaco, starring Nicole Kidman as the titular movie star and princess. He followed that up with another co-production, Peter Glanz’s rom-com The Longest Week, starring Olivia Wilde and Jason Bateman. Both films were backed by YRF Entertainment, a subsidiary of YRF, founded by Uday Chopra.
Nicole Kidman in Grace of Monaco, co-produced by Uday Chopra’s YRF Entertainment.
YRF’s expansion into streaming
However, YRF Entertainment couldn’t put together any Hollywood film after that year. That led to Uday rebranding the subsidiary into a digital production wing of YRF almost 10 years later. In 2023, he produced the docuseries The Romantics on Netflix India, which traced the decades-long history of YRF, and even featured an extremely rare appearance by Aditya Chopra.
He followed that non-fiction venture with YRF Entertainment’s fiction debut later that year by bankrolling Shiv Rawail’s period disaster thriller show The Railway Men. Starring Kay Kay Menon, R Madhavan, Babil Khan, and Divyenndu, it fetched rave reviews and became one of the most watched shows on Netflix India.
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However, like the rest of Uday’s career, there were hits and misses here as well, as Gopi Puthran’s crime thriller series Mandala Murders, headlined by Vaani Kapoor, failed to create the same effect on Netflix India last year. Now, with his involvement into the YRF Spy Universe with Alpha, Uday seems to have taken another pivot in his career.
