Vidya Balan PROFILE
Born on January 1, 1978, actress
Vidya Balan is from a non film background. She began her career starring in music videos, soap operas and commercials. She made her acting debut in a Bengali film called Bhalo Theko in 2003. It was closely followed by her Hindi film debut in
Parineeta in 2005, for which she received a Fimfare Award for Best Female Debut. The film was a commercial success and saw
Vidya running shoulders with
Saif Ali Khan and
Sanjay Dutt. In 2006, she worked with
Dutt again in
Raju Hirani's blockbuster
Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Once again her performance was well received by critics and this film went on to become the second highest grossing film of that year.
Mani Ratnam's critically acclaimed
Guru was
Balan's first release in 2007, in which she played a woman with a physical disability. The film did very well at the box office and her role was appreciated.
Her next two releases,
Salaam-E-Ishq and
Eklavya: A Royal Guard however failed to click at the box office, even though
Vidhu Vinod Chopra's film was selected as India's official entry to Oscars.
Balan's last two releases of the year,
Heyy Babyy (2007) and
Bhool Bhulaiya (2007) too fared extremely well at the box office. 2008 began on a good note for the actress with
Aziz Mirza's
Kismat Konnection doing very well at the box office. She was cast opposite
Shahid Kapoor in the film. Her 2009 release '
Paa', in which she essayed the role of a young independent gynecologist who is also a single-mother struggling with her 12-year-old son's Progeria syndrome, won her the year's Filmfare Award for Best Actress. '
Ishqiya' was her only release for year 2010 and
Balan bagged the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for her role in the flick. Her first release in 2011 was
Raj Kumar Gupta's '
No One Killed Jessica' alongside
Rani Mukerji, a semi-biographic film based on the Jessica Lal murder case, where she played the role of Jessica's reticent sister Sabrina Lal, who struggled for years to get justice for hersister.
December 2011 saw the release of her film The Dirty Picture which is based on the life of South siren Silk Smitha. The film went on to become a big blockbuster and garnered Balan a lot of awards as well. In 2012, she was seen inSujoy Ghosh's Kahaani, which was much appreciated by the critics as well as the audiences. In the same year, she also did a dance number in the film, Ferrari Ki Sawaari.
2012 became more special for Balan as she married Siddharth Roy Kapur in December. Balan will next be seen in Rajkumar Gupta's Ghanchakkar, opposite Emraan Hashmi. She is currently shooting for Shaadi Ke Side Effects, opposite Farhan Akhtar.