Deepika Padukone’s landmark 15 years in Bollywood

Deepika Padukone has close to 70 million followers on her Instagram account and has won countless awards including three from Filmfare. This week, as Deepika Padukone completes 15 years in Bollywood, she ranks among its highest paid stars. Deepika has been a trailblazer, not just in films, but in other spheres as well. Recently, she also turned producer with her own company, Ka Productions. She is also a recognizable face at the Cannes film festival as a jury member.

Long before she made her acting debut in the Kannada film, Aishwarya, she was already an acclaimed model. And while still a teenager, she was playing badminton at the national level. She is badminton ace Prakash Padukone’s daughter, so no surprises there. She has also supported various political and social causes and silently took part at a JNU student gathering a few years ago. She acted the part of an acid attack victim in her own production, Chhapaak. At one point, she admitted that she had been seeking treatment for depression and urged other fellow afflicted persons to seek help. She is now considered a mental health ambassador.

Deepika Padukone was signed up for the enjoyable melodrama, Om Shanti Om produced by Red Chillies Entertainment. Its offbeat story was penned by Farah Khan with Deepika playing two different characters who look alike although born several decades apart. She bagged the Best Debut (Female) Filmfare award for her performance. The film was released in 2007, and she hasn’t looked back since.

Her next memorable film came in 2009, when she acted in Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal, for which she won a Best Actress nomination at the Filmfare awards. The next year, 2010 had her acting in the commercially successful, Housefull. Unfortunately, 2011 was a dull, not-so-memorable year, but along came Cocktail in 2012, in which she once again proved her mettle.

Almost half-way through her 15-year career, came another string of hits, Chennai Express, Happy New Year and Bajirao Mastani. There was Ram-Leela just a year before, too. In between was the hilarious Piku, a film in which she acted with Amitabh Bachchan as her father. Another Filmfare award followed for Piku, which tackled the subject of father-daughter relationship stressed out by the digestive quirks of a Bengali senior citizen.

Deepika Padukone was absolutely regal and stunning as Rani Padmavati in the period romantic action drama, Padmaavat. Sultan Alauddin Khilji is captivated by reports of her beauty and plots to kidnap her forcibly. Khilji’s role was played by Ranveer Singh, Deepika’s real-life husband. Religious protests enhanced the buzz around the film and despite it being banned in several states, it was still a huge grosser at Rs 585 crores.

Just before the pandemic struck, DP came out with her own production, Chhapaak, where she enacted the role of real-life acid attack victim, Laxmi Agarwal. Whether Indian audiences were not aware enough to deal with such disturbing films where the lead fights for justice as a badly scarred acid attack victim or whether audiences responded to a boycott call given by political leaders who were upset at DP's sudden appearance at JNU, the fact remains that the film failed to do well at the box office. In 83, her second production venture, she plays Kapil Dev’s wife, Romi.

Deepika Padukone is all set to appear in four big budget films to be released in the near future. All eyes are now focused on Pathaan, a film produced by Aditya Chopra. Deepika will be seen in this action-adventure with top stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and John Abraham. A boycott trend has already begun for Pathaan on Twitter, and one can only hope that better sense will prevail and the film will shine at the box office. Best of luck to Deepika.