Aishwarya Rai Movie Career
Aishwarya Rai debuted in Mani Ratnam's critically acclaimed Tamil language film, Iruvar with Mohanlal and Tabu. She played a dual role in the film. She was introduced to Bollywood by Rahul Rawail in the film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya; the film was a poor performer at the box office. However, her third project, a Tamil-language film, Jeans by S.Shankar was a critical success. She then appeared in popular films Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) and Mohabbatein (2000). In 2002, Rai appeared with Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in the lavishly produced Devdas, which was a major box-office success. The film attracted overseas attention as well, receiving a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival and garnering international attention.
In 2003, Rai was a member of the jury at Cannes. In 2004, she was chosen by TIME Magazine's Asian Edition as one of Asia's "100 Most Influential People." She was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile on January 2, 2005 - "The Most Beautiful Face in the World." A month later she appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, and on April 25, 2005, she was featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment. A wax figure of Rai is on display in London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum.
In the past, Indian actors and actresses were celebrities in South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, but mostly unknown to the rest of the world. Aishwarya is one of the few Indian actresses to have attempted to step into Western territory. Although frequently the subject of gossip column speculation about an imminent Hollywood career, it was only in 2004 that Rai finally acted in a foreign film, when British director Gurinder Chadha hired her to play the heroine in Bride and Prejudice, a Hollywood-funded but Bollywood-influenced version of Jane Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice. She later acted in another English film, Mistress of Spices from the novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and directed by Berges, was released in the U.K. in April 2006. Her recent English film to be released was "Provoked" which got her critical acclaim as an actress. She has some more overseas projects up her sleeve like "The Last Legion" to be released in 2007, "Chaos" and "Singularity" in 2008.
Her recent Bollywood releases Dhoom 2 and Guru (opposite husband Abhishek Bachchan) have been extremely successful in the box office and the year 2007 proved to be lucky for the beautiful actress.
