Emran Anwar Hashmi was born to a Muslim father and Catholic mother. He is given a title of serial kisser because of his kissing scenes in bollywood movies. He was born on March 27 1979. He changed his name to Farhan Hashmi but recently reverted to his original name, albeit with an extra "a" as per numerology beliefs[citation needed]. He graduated from Sydenham College in Mumbai where he pursued graphics and animations course.

He is the nephew of Mahesh Bhatt and is a cousin of actress and director Pooja Bhatt. He also has a family residing in Pakistan.

Hashmi made his debut in 2003 with the film Footpath however, it did not do well at the box office. He shot to fame with Murder (2004) which was his first hit. His next few films such as Zeher (2005), Kalyug, Aksar (2005) and Gangster (2006) did well at the box office and the soundtracks in these respective films helped create a large fan base. The songs from most of his movies have become instant hits. The playback singers for most of his film's hit songs have been Himesh Reshammiya, Kunal Ganjawala and Atif Aslam.

Emraan is also famous for his kissing scenes in most of his movies and has gained the title of 'Serial Kisser' in the Bollywood industry. Recently he tried to shed himself from the serial kisser image with his recent film Awarapan (2007). Emraan has said in many interviews that he will not be doing any kissing scenes in his future films. However in the trailers to his new film Jannat he is seen in a intimate scene with his female co-star.

Emraan Hashmi's height is residue to 5'9", but most people says that he is of 5'5".

The actor has always been surrounded by controversy because of the contentious scenes in all of his movies. Perhaps controversy comes with the territory he belongs to.

As of April 2006, he is believed to be commanding a fee of Rs. 80 lakhs (approx. 180,000 US dollars) per movie.