Cinema VinesDeepika Padukone’s rise to international stardom began far from the glitter of Bollywood. Though the 2007 blockbuster Om Shanti Om introduced her to a wide Hindi‑speaking audience, her first screen appearance was in a Kannada film. In 2006, director Indrajit Lankesh cast the then‑model in the commercial hit Aishwarya, a remake of the Telugu success Manmadhudu and a film that also drew inspiration from Tamil’s Ghajini. The movie featured Kannada superstar Upendra in the lead, and it performed well at the box office, giving Padukone a foothold in the South Indian industry.
Before she stepped into acting, the young Padukone was a badminton player, following in the footsteps of her father, former world champion Prakash Padukone. Lankesh recalled that he once played badminton with her while she represented Karnataka at state championships. “When I was already an established director and she was a model, I felt she had the focus, hunger, ambition and discipline to become a global star,” he told the Times of India. He added that she adhered to an eight‑hour workday during filming, a practice he fully supported, noting that exceeding that limit often shows on camera.
Padukone’s Bollywood debut came with the 2008 romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno, followed by roles in Love Aaj Kal, Housefull and Cocktail. In 2017 she crossed over to Hollywood with xXx: Return of Xander Cage, starring alongside Vin Diesel. Recent releases include Siddharth Anand’s Fighter, Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again and Nag Ashwin’s 2024 Telugu sci‑fi Kalki 2898 AD.
On the personal front, Padukone married actor Ranveer Singh in 2018 at Lake Como, Italy. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Dua Padukone Singh, in September 2024, and announced a second daughter on September 19 of the same year. Professionally, she is set to star opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Siddharth’s upcoming film King and will appear in Atlee’s Telugu project Raaka with Allu Arjun. Director Indrajit Lankesh, who has a Master’s in Journalism and extensive media experience, is preparing a Hindi feature titled Jai Hind Jai Sindh: A Love Story.
