How Vidya Balan Became an Icon for Youngsters!!

Introduction of Vidya Balan

Vidya Balan’s full name is Vidya P. Balan. She is one of the nationally- award-winning Indian film actresses who stood her ground with spectacular performances in Indian cinema. Balan created her own set of pathways for the choice of movies. Whatever might be the role, Vidya Balan has proved herself in many movies. She won numerous awards for her performances nationally.

Balan has also been the prestigious Padma Shri award winner. Vidya Balan always wanted to be an actress right from the beginning. As she comes from a non-film background, it’s tough for her to get through in the movie industry. All her performances indicate versatility in acting.

Vidya has been a multilingual actress who has worked in Hindi, Malayalam, and Bengali. She broke through stereotyping actresses to one particular genre of film.bold characters, too; she proved her potential to be the best. According to Indian film directors, Balan is a promising, dedicated actress. She is forty-three years old and still paving her path in Indian cinema.

Initial Life of Vidya Balan

Vidya belongs to south India, Tamil Nadu, and is also a member of the Tamil Brahmin family. Her date of birth is the 1st of January 1979. Her origin, basically, is in Tamil Nadu, but she was born and brought up in Mumbai and her father’s name is P.R. Balan. He was the vice-presidential candidate of some cable and networking company. Her mother’s name was Saraswathy Balan. She is a homemaker. He also has an elder sister working in the advertising industry. Her name is Priya Balan. Schooling of Vidya Balan happened in Saint Anthony’s High School in Mumbai. Since she had a great interest in movies, Vidya started acting at sixteen years. She decided to complete her studies as well. Her parents supported her while she was acting in the TV series.

She signed 12 back-to-back Malayalam films. Unfortunately, the Malayalam industry did not click her as much as the Hindi industry clicked for her. So she switched to other languages after Malayalam for better exposure and scope. Madhavan offered her an opportunity to work in the Tamil film ‘Run’.. But Vidya experienced a bad situation there too. Another actress replaced her.

In this film, other actresses constantly got replaced by her for some reason. She then shifted to acting in television commercials. She has done nearly sixty television commercials and quite some music videos.

Education of Vidya Balan

Vidya Balan joined college for her bachelor’s. She did her bachelor’s in sociology from Saint Xavier’s College. After her bachelor’s, she studied at Mumbai University for her master’s. While doing her master’s, she got an opportunity for a Malayalam film along with Mohanlal, a reputed actor of Malayalam. Production issues prevented the release of that movie on screen.

Family and Personal Life

The media often speculate about Vidya’s romantic love life, making her one of the prominent actresses in India in their reports. She once hinted at an ex-lover who commented on her weight because of which she broke up with him. It was speculated to be Shahid Kapoor, but he said that wasn’t true. In 2012, she confirmed she was dating and later married Siddharth Roy Kapur.

Vidya has been trained in Carnatic music and also in Bharatanatyam and Kathak, which are traditional Indian dance forms. She does vegetarianism and was crowned “India’s hottest vegetarian” by PETA. Her weight has often become a talking point in the media, but she still managed to maintain a clean image among people.

She has also expressed concern for nutrition with the Child In Need Institute and promoted education and women empowerment. Moreover, she had become the first brand ambassador for Swachh Bharat Abhiyan—an initiative towards India’s sanitation program. She has won several awards for her works, including the Prabha Khaitan Puraskar.

It was then that Vidya’s career was reinvented after her roles and wardrobe choices in the films Heyy Babyy and Kismat Konnection were heavily criticized. She later took up roles that brought out her true identity and received appreciation from critics for performances in films like Paa, Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture, and Kahaani. This shift in career enabled her to stand as a trendsetting performer while changing the face of women’s roles in Bollywood, earning names such as “female hero” and featuring on India’s most powerful women lists.

In recognition of her contributions, Vidya received the Padma Shri in 2014 and an honorary doctorate in 2015, solidifying her legacy in Indian cinema.

Hustle in the career

She made her film debut with the Bengali film ‘Bhalo Theko’ in 2003, winning accolades and an Anandalok Puraskar for Best Actress. Her Hindi film career started with ‘Parineeta’ in 2005 after rigorous testing opposite Saif Ali Khan.Chiefly a love story, appraisals of the film were good. The year 2006 saw her playing the lead role for ‘Lage Raho Munna Bhai,’ a huge commercial success. Though films like ‘Salaam-e-Ishq’ and ‘Eklavya’ were setbacks of sorts, Vidya’s performance went noticed.

Her role in ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’ (2007) delineated her talent and got her a Filmfare nomination. After mixed results with both ‘Heyy Babyy’ and ‘Kismat Konnection,’ she had a comeback of sorts with ‘Paa’ in 2009, alongside Amitabh Bachchan. (‘Ishqiya’, 2010) did seal, absolutely, the credentials as an actress.

In 2011, Vidya hit two successive successes with ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and ‘The Dirty Picture’, the latter doing quite well at the box office. Another huge success followed in 2012 with ‘Kahaani’, which further cemented her status as a lead actress by being shot on a micro-budget. Then came mixed results for both ‘Ghanchakkar’ and ‘Shaadi Ke Side Effects.’.

She took an even more impressive step with her performances in ‘Hamaari Adhuri Kahani’ in 2015 and ‘Teen’ in 2016. After the debutant act in Marathi cinema with ‘Ekk Albela’, Vidya continued to make waves with powerful performances in ‘Begum Jaan’ and ‘Tumhari Sulu’ in 2017. Not having good success with the sequels of ‘N.T.R.’, she bounced back with ‘Nerkonda Paarvai’ and ‘Mission Mangal’ in 2019.

In 2020, Vidya slipped into the genre of the short film “Natkhat,” displaying her versatility. Non-stop projects keep Vidya Balan in the limelight of Indian cinema.

Controversies

Her film “The Dirty Picture” has been the subject of a huge controversy.The media gave much attention to this movie, stating that the director deliberately made it based on the story of Silk Smitha, who was then an actress in films.

The movie deals with the sexual representation of a woman’s journey, that resembles Smita’s journey. Thus the media touted it as the autobiography of Smitha. Amidst all the controversies, the film did great at the box office.

Awards and Honors

She has won the ‘Anandalok Puraskar’ for the film ‘Bhalo Theko.’
She won Best Female Debut for the film ‘Parineeta’ and was nominated for Best Actress.
The movie ‘Eklavya’ had made an Indian entry for the 80th Academy Awards.
She was nominated for a Filmfare award under the category of second Best Actress for the film “Bhool Bhulaiyaa.” In “Paa,” Vidya won two awards. One was Filmfare and another was the Screen Award for Best Actress.
For ‘Ishqiya,’ she won Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress and another second Best Actress award. She was nominated for Best Actress at Filmfare the same year, along with these two.
The film ‘No one Killed Jessica’ starred Rani Mukerji, which received a Filmfare nomination in the Best Actress category.
She won three prestigious awards for the movie ‘The Dirty Picture’. She won the Best Actress at the National Film Award, a Filmfare award, and a Screen Award.
Vidya Balan won the Best Screen Actress Award for the fourth time in a row, along with the third Filmfare Award for Best Actress.
She won her fifth Screen Award and the fourth Best Actress Award for the –film ‘Tumhari Sulu’.
The Filmfare nominated her for the film ‘Mission Mangal’ under the Best Actress category.

Conclusion

One among the very few actresses in the Indian film fraternity who has been able to make a difference with versatile acting is Vidya Balan. Born on 1 January 1979 in Mumbai, she wanted to become an actress since her childhood despite coming from a non-film background. Vidya has worked in Hindi, Malayalam and Bengali films breaking all stereotypes with her powerful acts. Her main films include “Parineeta,” “Lage Raho Munna Bhai,” “Paa,” “The Dirty Picture,” and “Kahaani.” Padma Shri recipient Vidya supports many social causes and has an exceptionally clean image. She remains one of the leading ladies of Indian cinema.