Vidya Balan, an Indian actress, was born on January 1, 1979. With her appearances in female-led films, she is credited with changing the way women are portrayed in Hindi cinema.
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Vidya Balan has won multiple accolades, including seven Filmfare Awards and a National Film Award. The Indian government bestowed upon her the Padma Shri in 2014.
Vidya had her debut acting role in the 1995 sitcom Hum Paanch. Vidya always wanted to be a movie star. Vidya Balan appeared in TV ads and music videos while obtaining a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Mumbai. Vidya Balan also made multiple failed attempts to launch a film career.
Vidya Balan made her cinematic debut in the drama Parineeta (2005), her first Hindi film, and won recognition for her role in the Bengali film Bhalo Theko (2003). After that, she had box office hits with Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) and Bhool Bhulaiyaa (2007), but her next roles didn’t help her career progress.
Vidya made a name for herself playing strong female roles in five straight commercial hits, which also brought her praise from critics and awards. These appeared in the thrillers No One Killed Jessica (2011) and Kahaani (2012), the drama Paa (2009), the dark comedy Ishqiya (2010), and the biography The Dirty Picture (2011). Vidya Balan was awarded the National Film Award for Best Actress for the last of these.
After a slump, Vidya returned to the screen as a happy woman juggling job and family in Tumhari Sulu (2017) and Mission Mangal (2019). The latter turned out to be her best-grossing film. Since then, Vidya has acted in three films on Amazon Prime Video: Jalsa (2022), Sherni (2021), and Shakuntala Devi (2020).
Vidya also advocates for women’s emancipation and humanitarian causes. Vidya Balan has hosted a radio programme and is a member of the Indian Central Board of Film Certification. Vidya Balan received flak early in her career for her erratic weight and fashion choices, but she was eventually recognised in the media for her uniqueness. Film producer Siddharth Roy Kapur is Vidya’s husband.
Vidya Balan Early Years And Early Professional Setbacks
Vidya was born on January 1, 1979, into a Tamil Brahmin family in Bombay, which is now Mumbai. Her father, P. Her mother Saraswathy Balan is a homemaker, and her father R. Balan is the executive vice-president of Digicable. Vidya reports that they speak Palakkad Tamil at home. Her older sister Priya Balan works in advertising. Her second cousin is the actress Priyamani.
Vidya was raised in the suburban Mumbai neighbourhood of Chembur and went to St. Anthony Girls’ High School. Vidya Balan was inspired to pursue a career in film at an early age by the roles played by actors Shabana Azmi and Madhuri Dixit. At the age of sixteen, she starred as the bespectacled teen Radhika in the first season of Ekta Kapoor’s sitcom Hum Paanch. Following the show’s conclusion, Vidya turned down director Anurag Basu’s offer to play the lead role in a television soap opera because she wanted to focus on her film career. Her parents were supportive of the choice, but they advised her to finish her studies first.
Vidya was a master’s student when she was cast opposite Mohanlal in the Malayalam film Chakram. Vidya Balan then signed on for 12 more Malayalam language films, but Chakram was shelved due to production issues. This was the first time a film starring Mohanlal had been postponed in Malayalam cinema history. Producers blamed Vidya for bringing “bad luck” to the project, calling her a “jinx” and replacing her in the films she had been contracted for. Vidya turned her attention to Tamil cinema. Vidya Balan was chosen to play the lead female role in N in 2001. Run, Linguswamy (2002).
But after finishing the first shooting schedule, she was abruptly fired and replaced by Meera Jasmine. Vidya Balan was falsely cast for a sex comedy, a genre she didn’t feel comfortable with, so she decided to abandon the project. Vidya Balan was then cast again for Meera Jasmine in Bala (2002).
Vidya Balan later signed on for a third Tamil film, Manasellam (2003), but the director wasn’t happy with her work. Kalari Vikraman, another Malayalam film, which she finished in 2003, never had a theatre release. Vidya didn’t succeed in her film career, but she did appear in about 60 television commercials and music videos for Euphoria and Shubha Mudgal, most of which were directed by Pradeep Sarkar.
Movie streaming (2020–present)
Vidya’s debut work was a short film, Natkhat (2020), about a mother teaching her young son about gender equality. It debuted on YouTube as part of the We Are One: A Global Film Festival. Vidya Balan then played the role of Shakuntala Devi, the mental calculator, in an eponymous biopic, which was streamed on Amazon Prime Video due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the environmental thriller Sherni (2021), Vidya played an Indian Forest Service officer who was hunting a man-eating tigress the following year. She read Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees and met with two forest officers in order to prepare. Vidya then starred with Shefali Shah in the thriller Jalsa (2022), her third consecutive film to be released on Amazon Prime Video. Vidya Balan played a journalist caught in a hit-and-run, a morally dubious role that she was initially hesitant to play.
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The murder mystery Neeyat (2023) directed by Anu Menon starred Vidya leading an ensemble cast. This was Vidya’s first theatrical release since Mission Mangal in 2019. Vidya Balan has stated that her character in Neeyat was “quirky, socially awkward and unusual” in contrast to the usual portrayal of detectives as flamboyant, including her own in Bobby Jasoos.
Vidya Balan Private Life And Non-Screen Employment
Siddharth Roy Kapur and Vidya Balan are grinning at the camera. Vidya has vehemently refuted reports in the media that she is romantically involved with her co-actors. In 2009, she stirred up controversy when she brought up a past relationship in which she was the target of “caustic remarks” because of her weight. “That someone whose approval mattered to me started to constantly find faults with me.
At that point in time, it was important to walk away from that relationship,” Vidya said in an interview in May 2012 in reference to her relationship with Siddharth Roy Kapur, the CEO of UTV Motion Pictures. The couple were married in a private ceremony in Bandra, Mumbai, on December 14, 2012, though she refused to name him. Kapoor, however, denied the allegations.
In addition to her training in Carnatic music, Vidya studied Kathak and Bharatnatyam dance for a brief period of time. Vidya has expressed her religious beliefs, saying, “I am a person with a lot of faith and I have conversations all the time but I am not so religious in the conventional, organised sense.” Vidya is a vegetarian, and in PETA polls from 2011 and 2012, she was named “India’s hottest vegetarian.” Her fluctuations in weight have received significant media attention in India.
In March 2011, Vidya supported the World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour campaign in India. Vidya Balan also advocated for nutrition in India for the Child In Need Institute (CINI), a non-profit organisation based in Kolkata. In September 2012, Vidya visited a village in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, where she took part in a campaign to promote women’s empowerment and children’s education.
The Calcutta Chamber of Commerce awarded Vidya the Prabha Khaitan Puraskar 2012 for her efforts to empower women; she was the youngest recipient of the award. In 2012, Vidya became the nation’s first brand ambassador for the nation’s sanitation programme, which was later renamed the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Since then, she has participated in a nationwide television and radio campaign aimed at increasing
Vidya was the grand marshal of the 2013 New York City India Day Parade. That same year, she introduced a technology-based learning platform for impoverished children in the Thanapur village of Uttar Pradesh. That same year, Vidya hosted the No More Kamzor television special on women’s empowerment.
In honour of International Women’s Day in 2015, Vidya wrote an opinion piece in Hindustan Times about the challenges faced by Indian women. In August 2017, Vidya was appointed to the Indian Central Board of Film Certification, which certifies motion pictures for theatrical release. In August of that same year, she was named the goodwill ambassador of Arpan, an NGO that raises awareness of sexual abuse.
Vidya’s film roles were scrutinised extensively after the success of Parineeta and Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Vir Sanghvi pointed out that Heyy Babyy and Kismat Konnection were “strange films […] in which she tried to pretend to be what she is not — a Bollywood bimbette.” Vidya referred to that period of her career as a “struggle to be someone else.” In response to the criticism her film choices generated, Vidya chose roles that she “believed in” rather than choosing based on convention. The media subsequently referred to Vidya as “bold” and “daring” in her choices.
Vidya during the 2013 GQ Men of the Year Awards
Her “questionable wardrobe” garnered a lot of media attention due to her leading parts in Heyy Babyy and Kismat Konnection. Following her roles as strong-willed heroines in Paa, Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture, and Kahaani, Vidya was recognised by the media for starting a movement that challenges the stereotypical portrayal of heroines in Bollywood. The latter two’s huge box office success earned her the title of “female hero”.
Vidya Balan In 2012, the magazine Verve featured her as one of India’s “Young Power Women” and wrote, “In a reel world peopled by size zero-toned bodies and pretty-as-a-picture heroines, Vidya comes across as completely real and natural – a woman who has followed her own instincts and dared to live her destiny by being her own person and not morphing herself to fit into any conventional slot.” Two years later, the magazine listed her as a power icon. In 2018, The Economic Times considered Vidya to be one of the most prominent celebrity brand ambassadors in India.
For her contributions to the entertainment industry, Vidya was given the fourth-highest civilian award in India, the Padma Shri, in 2014. The next year, Rai University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Arts degree and named a scholarship programme for underprivileged girls in her honor. The university’s chancellor, Harbeen Arora, stated, “Among the league of iconic actors, Vidya is a pioneer in every way. Her films epitomise a distinct Indianness and a powerful womanhood.”
Vidya Balan Employment
Initial work, 2003–2008
In 2003, Vidya made her screen debut in the drama Bhalo Theko, which was directed by Goutam Halder. Because of her combination of innocence and experience, he cast her in the lead role of Aanandi, a young woman reflecting on her past. Vidya was thrilled to be involved in Bengali cinema, later describing it as a dream come true and emphasising its contribution to her subsequent progress. Vidya Balan received an Anandalok Purashkar for Best Actress for her performance. Vidya auditioned for the lead role in Pradeep Sarkar’s film Parineeta (2005) on Pradeep Sarkar’s recommendation.
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Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra originally wanted an established actress for the role, but eventually agreed to cast Vidya after she underwent six months of rigorous testing. Based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s 1914 Bengali novel of the same name, Parineeta tells the story of the love between Shekhar (Saif Ali Khan), the son of the local zamindar, and Lalita (Vidya), the dignified daughter of the family’s tenant.
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