
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (born Aishwarya Rai) is an Indian actress and former Miss World. Before starting her acting career, she worked as a model and gained fame after winning the Miss World title in 1994.
Often cited by the media as
one of the most beautiful women in the world, Rai made her movie debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film
Iruvar (1997) and had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie
Jeans (1998). She came to the attention of Bollywood in the movie
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance in the film won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 2002 she appeared in Bhansali's next project,
Devdas (2002), for which she won her second Best Actress Award at the Filmfare. After a low phase in her career during 2003-2005, she appeared in the blockbuster
Dhoom 2 (2006), which turned out to be her biggest Bollywood commercial success. She later appeared in films like
Guru (2007) and
Jodhaa Akbar (2008), which were commercially successful and got her critical acclaim. Recently, she starred in
Robot (2010), the third highest grossing movie in Indian history. Rai has thus established herself as one of the leading contemporary actresses in the Indian film industry.
During her career, Rai has acted in over forty movies in Hindi, English, Tamil and Bengali including the international productions
Bride and Prejudice (2003),
The Mistress of Spices (2005),
The Last Legion (2007) and
The Pink Panther 2 (2009) in English. As her current name suggests, she is now married to
Abhishek Bachchan, son of
Amitabh Bachchan. She recently had a baby and is currently taking a hiatus from films, although she continues to appear in print ads as a fashion and makeup model.