Pednekar was born to a Konkani family in Goa, her father is from a Goan village called Pedne (the origin of her name), and a Haryanvi mother. She did her schooling from Arya Vidya Mandir in Juhu Mumbai. She was an assistant casting director for six years with Shanoo Sharma of Yash Raj Films before venturing into acting.

Film debut and breakthrough (2015)

Pednekar played the role of Sandhya Varma, an obese girl in her debut film Dum Laga Ke Haisha, opposite Ayushmann Khurrana in 2015. As reported by Daily News and Analysis, she was quoted as saying that in order to play the role of an overweight woman, she gained close to 12 kg, despite being overweight before the shooting had commenced. It is also reported that Pednekar has signed a three-film deal with Yash Raj Films. Rajeev Masand wrote in his reviews: "Pednekar steals the film with an assured turn, effortlessly making you care for Sandhya, without ever reducing her to a slobbering, self-pitying caricature." After filming, she began losing weight and shared methods and tips of the process through her social media. She lost significant weight before the release of the film. The film proved to be a sleeper hit and Pednekar won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut for the film.

That same year, Pednekar appeared in Y-Films's mini web-series Man's world. The four-part series about gender inequality premiered on YouTube on 29 September 2015.^[11] It also featured the actresses Parineeti Chopra, Kalki Koechlin and Richa Chadda.^[12]

Commercial and critical success (2017)

After a year of absence from the screen, Pednekar appeared in Shree Narayan Singh's directorial debut Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017), alongside Akshay Kumar, which tells the story of a young woman in rural India who insists on the eradication of open defecation.^[13] Despite disliking the picture, Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV praised Pednekar for "flesh[ing] out a refreshingly relatable college topper who becomes the principal catalyst for a mini-revolution".^[14] The film proved to be a major commercial success.^[15]

That same year, she followed the success with the comedy-drama Shubh Mangal Savdhan (2017), produced by Anand L. Rai and directed by R.S. Prasanna, in which Pednekar reunites with Ayushmann Khurrana.^[16][17] In the review HFT wrote: "Bhumi and Ayushman paired together one more time and nobody else but the two of them could have pulled off the roles better." Altogether, the movie received positive reviews.^[18]