They first worked together in Buniyaad, a popular Indian television series which aired in 1986 and got married a few years later. She is an acclaimed actress with roles like Veerawali and Ganga under her belt and he’s one of India’s most respected filmmakers — having directed films like Sholay and Shaan. When they got married, Kiran Joneja and Ramesh Sippy were a power couple in Indian entertainment industry and it looked like the partnership would extend to movies and projects, yet, that didn’t happen.
Despite being a successful actress, Kiran did not appear in many of her husband’s projects. “You’ll have to ask Mr. Sippy,” she told Connected to India during a recent interview. “But I think he was conscious of not promoting his wife. It probably didn’t seem professional to him. And I didn’t push it either.”
Her only major film collaboration with him was Akayla in 1991, where she starred opposite Aditya Pancholi. “After Buniyaad, I got into marriage and everything. So the career really never… it was the beginning and the end, sort of. I never really pursued it ambitiously,” she admitted.
Kiran, who met Ramesh Sippy on the sets of Buniyaad, where she was cast as Veerawali after another actress was replaced, said, “I had never seen Mr. Sippy before that. I got to know how big he was only after I started working with him.”
Though not from a film family, Kiran carved a space for herself early on through projects like Khosla Ka Ghosla, Fashion, and Jab We Met. But after marriage, her focus shifted. Today, she is the Managing Director of the *Ramesh Sippy Academy of Cinema and Entertainment, a role she takes seriously. “I was never trained in business or admin. I’ve learned on the job,” she said.
She is also completing a documentary on her husband, which she began out of personal passion and now plans to release in 2025, marking 50 years of Sholay. “I think it’s very important to document what you have done in life. That will stay forever,” she said.
Though the couple have an age gap of 17 years, they have been married for over three decades now.
