India Today described the film as an 'amateur mess' and the film proved to be a box office flop. The film's production was marred by a dispute between Ranaut and Darshan she objected to her voice being dubbed by another artist, but he insisted that he needed a particular 'twang and accent' for her character. The following year, Ranaut portrayed an aspiring musician in Suneel Darshan's musical thriller Shakalaka Boom Boom, alongside Bobby Deol, Upen Patel and Celina Jaitly. Hers is the pivotal character and an extremely difficult role to essay, but she manages it well Kangana's nuances of an alcoholic character are disconcertingly realistic.' She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut, along with various other debut awards.

Released in 2006, Gangster emerged as a critical and commercial success and her performance was praised.Raja Sen of said that 'Kangana is a remarkable find, the actress coming across with great conviction. Ranaut was only seventeen while filming and said that she 'had difficulty first in understanding and then unwinding from the character', describing her craft as 'raw and immature'. She was cast in the central role of Simran, an alcoholic woman caught in a romantic triangle between a notorious gangster (played by Shiney Ahuja) and a sympathetic friend (played by Emraan Hashmi). However, Singh was later unavailable to do the film and Ranaut was contracted as a replacement for Gangster,opting out of I Love You Boss. Bhatt felt that she was too young for the role and signed Chitrangada Singh instead. In 2004, the producers Ramesh Sharma and Pahlaj Nilani announced that Ranaut would make her film debut with the Deepak Shivdasani-directed I Love You Boss.The following year, an agent took her to the office of the producer Mahesh Bhatt, where she interacted with the director Anurag Basu and auditioned for the lead role in the romantic thriller Gangster. Her decision not to pursue medicine led to constant feuding with her parents and her father refused to sponsor a pursuit he considered to be aimless. Determined to find her 'space and freedom', she relocated to Delhi at the age of sixteen. However, a failed unit test in chemistry during her twelfth grade led Ranaut to reconsider her career prospects and despite preparing for the All India Pre Medical Test, she did not turn up for the exam. She initially intended to become a doctor on the insistence of her parents. I questioned the discrimination.' She did not subscribe to the stereotypes that were expected of her and experimented with fashion from a young age, often pairing up accessories and clothes that would seem 'bizarre' to her neighbours.Ranaut was educated at the DAV School in Chandigarh, where she pursued science as her core subject, remarking that she was 'very studious' and 'always paranoid about results'. According to Ranaut, she was 'stubborn and rebellious' while growing up: 'If my father would gift my brother a plastic gun and get a doll for me, I would not accept that.

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