Deepika Padukone
Padukone was born to Ujjala and Prakash Padukone on January 5, 1986 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her family moved to Bangalore when she was only eleven months old. Her mother is a travel agent while her father, a badminton player, played at the international level for India and won the All England Championship in 1980. She also has a younger sister named Anisha. Padukone has received formal training in Bharatnatyam dancing.
Padukone attended Sophia High School in Bangalore and later did her Indian School Certificate studies from Mount Carmel College. While in high school she played badminton at the state level like her father and was a member of her father's badminton club. Unlike her father, she wasn't keen on pursuing a career as a badminton player and left it because of her Indian Certificate of Secondary Education exams.
After pursuing a career in modeling, Padukone branched out a career into acting. She started by starring in the music video for Naam Hai Tera, a song from the pop album Aap Kaa Surroor, an independent album by Himesh Reshammiya.
In 2006, Padukone made her cinematic debut in the Kannada film, Aishwarya. She later made a successful Bollywood debut in 2007 with Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om opposite Shahrukh Khan, which became the biggest hit of the year in India and overseas. Essaying the role of a 1970s superstar Shantipriya, and later as Sandy, Padukone's performance was well received, earning the actress a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award as well as her first Filmfare Best Actress nomination. Taran Adarsh from indiaFM noted, "Deepika has all it takes to be a top star -- the personality, the looks and yes, she's supremely talented too. Standing in the same frame as SRK and getting it right is no small achievement. She comes as a whiff of fresh air
Padukone is currently working on Siddharth Anand's Bachna Ae Haseenon opposite Ranbir Kapoor and Nikhil Advani's Chandni Chowk To China opposite Akshay Kumar.
