VIDYA BALAN

VIDYA BALAN was born on  1 January 1978  in Ottapalam, Palakkad District, Kerala, to P. R. Balan (Vice President of ETC Channel) and a housewife mother in a Tamil speaking Palakkad Iyer family. 

Her acting career started when she signed up for the Malayalam film Chakram, alongside Mohanlal but the film was shelved. After that, she signed for the Tamil film, Run, but for reasons undisclosed, she was dropped after a first schedule and replaced by Meera Jasmine. When Chakram was restarted with Prithviraj in the lead, Meera Jasmine was chosen ahead of Balan again. She then turned to television advertising. From 1998 onwards, she appeared in numerous television ads.  She also took supporting roles in music videos, appearing with singers and bandssuch as Euphoria, Shubha Mudgal, and Pankaj Udhas. Balan also portrayed the role of Radhika Mathur in a few episodes of the later seasons of Hum Paanch.

In 2003, she appeared in the Bengali film, Bhalo Theko directed by Goutam Halder, for which she won the Anandalok Puraskar Best Actress award in Kolkata.  

Balan made her Hindi film debut with Pradeep Sarkar's musical Parineeta She eventually won a Best Debut (Female) award and received a nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards ceremony.  

In 2006, she appeared opposite Sanjay Dutt in Rajkumar Hirani's musical comedy film Lage Raho Munna Bhai. Once again her performance was well received by critics and the film became the second highest grossing film of the year with a net total of Rs.118.57 crore (US$26.09 million).  In 2007, she featured in a supporting role in Mani Ratnam's semi-biographic drama Guru as a woman suffering frommultiple sclerosis. she subsequently featured in Vidhu Vinod Chopra's suspense thriller Eklavya: The Royal Guard alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Boman Irani, Sharmila Tagore, Saif Ali Khanand Sanjay Dutt. The film, which flopped commercially, met with positive critical reviews and was selected as India's official entry to the Oscars for the 80th Academy Awards. 

Balan followed through with a leading role in Sajid Khan's comedy Heyy Babyy as Isha Sahni, a deceived, single mother. The film which also featured Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan emerged as a box-office success with a worldwide gross of Rs.83.68 crore (US$18.41 million), but her performance met with mixed reviews. 

December 2011 saw the release of Ekta Kapoor's The Dirty Picture, a biopic based on the life and death of the controversial Indian actress Silk Smitha.  The film was eventually declared a blockbuster with a total gross of Rs.117 crore (US$25.74 million), emerging as the biggest opening ever for a women-oriented film in the history of Indian Cinema. Balan won a second Filmfare Award for Best Actress and a third consecutive Screen Award for Best Actress that year along with several other awards in the same category for her performance in the film. As of December 2011, Balan is set to star in Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Chenab Gandhi.