Aishwarya Rai (Tulu-Kannada: ಐಶ್ವರ್ಯಾ ರಾಯ್, IPA: [ɛʃvərjɑː rɑːj]; born November 1, 1973) is an Indian actress. Prior to her career in film, she worked as a model and gained fame for winning the Miss World contest in 1994.
She made her film debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar (1997), and had her first critical and commercial success with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), with whom she repeated this success with Devdas (2002). Since then, she has acted in nearly forty Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and English films.
Often touted as the most beautiful woman in the world,[1] she is one of the most popular actresses of India and has worked on many international projects, such as Bride & Prejudice (2003) and The Last Legion (2007).
Career
Rai debuted in Tamil language film, Iruvar (1997) with Mohanlal.[2] She was introduced to Bollywood in the film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya with Bobby Deol as her co-star; the film was not a big hit on box office. However, her third project, a Tamil-language film, Jeans (1998) by S. Shankar was a critical and commercial success for which she was awarded the Filmfare Best Actress Award South. Aishwarya then appeared in many Bollywood films; a few successful films of her career include Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) and Taal (1999) for which her performance was lauded.[3] She was awarded the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her role in the former. In 2000 she had a supporting role in the hit film Mohabbatein and also in another hit film Josh. Her third film in Tamil language project to date is, Kandukondain Kandukondain won her positive reviews for her serious portrayal of her character, Meenakshi.
In 2002, Rai appeared with superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bansali's lavishly produced Devdas, which was a major box-office success[4] and earned her the Filmfare Best Actress Award.[5] The film attracted overseas attention as well, receiving a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival.[6] It was during this time that she garnered the attention of the West as an Indian actress and went on to appear in a few Hollywood projects.
As her name gained popularity in the West, she was chosen by Time magazine in 2004 as one of the World's "100 Most Influential People" and in 2003, appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Asia Edition (TIMEasia). She was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile on January 2. A month later she appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman. She was also featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment. In 2003, she acted in the critically acclaimed and commercial success Bengali film, Chokher Bali, an adaptation of one of Rabindranath Tagore's novels by the same name.
Rai has been a regular at the Cannes Film Festival since 2002, and was a member of the Jury at Cannes in the year 2003. In October 2004, a wax figure of Rai became on display in London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum.[7] The same month, her first foreign film was released: Bride and Prejudice.[8] The film was an Indian version of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. The film did well commercially in the U.K but not in India. Her next overseas venture, The Mistress of Spices, was critically acclaimed though not commercially successful. She then appeared at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, as part of a performance showcasing Indian art, on behalf of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, to be held in New Delhi. In between her overseas acting stints, she appeared in the Indian film Bunty Aur Babli in a hugely popular seven minute dance sequence for the song "Kajra Re".
In 2005, Rai signed a three-year contract with L'Oréal, as a spokesmodel for the cosmetics company.
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