Deepika Padukone Biography

Biography :

Deepika Padukone was born on January 5, 1986, in Copenhagen, Denmark, but at the age of 11 months, she moved to Bangladore. Her father, Prakash, was an accomplished badminton player who captured the 1980 All England Championship and represented India internationally. And her mom was a travel agent.

Deepika Padukone and her sister Anisha both played sports growing up. Anisha wanted to play golf while Deepika Padukone alternated between basketball, throw ball, tennis, and baseball. Eventually, she followed in her father’s footsteps and became a solid badminton player during her school years at Sophia High School and Mount Carmel College. Her playing took her to a state level of competition and the 10th standard, but her educational ICSE exams forced her to stop playing for months. This put a dent into any future career as a professional badminton player, but it did open the door to a new career in modeling.

Deepika Padukone was still in college when she started modeling as a pastime, but it quickly became a lucrative career. Over time, she landed jobs with companies in India like Close-Up, Dabur Lal, Liril, and Limca before moving on to larger and more well-known companies. Among them were Maybelline, which hired Deepika Padukone as one of their global spokesmodels. Jewels of India also hired her to be their new brand ambassador.

Based on these accomplishments, it came as no surprise that Deepika Padukone was picked as Model of the Year in 2006, at the Kingfisher Fashion Awards. She would also appear for Kingfisher in their swimsuit calendar and subsequently win Fresh Face of the Year and Female Model of the Year courtesy of the Idea Zee Fashion Awards. Finally, Deepika Padukone earned further modeling ambassador jobs with Levi Strauss, Tissot SA and Kingfisher Airlines.

“Naam hai tera” was a song from Himesh Reshammiya, and its music video was Deepika Padukone’s first foray into the acting world. She soon followed it up with a role in the 2006 film Aishwarya before entering the Bollywood film world in 2007 for the first time with Om Shanti Om. Not only was it one of India’s biggest hits and an international favorite, but it also earned the model-turned-actress a pair of Filmfare Awards, two Star Screen Awards, an Apsara Award, and an IIFA Award, among other honors.

Since the release of Om Shanti Om, Deepika Padukone has kept busy with roles in the 2008 film Bachna Ae Haseeno and the upcoming film Chandni Chowk To China. She also found time to appear as a performer in a pair of episodes for TV’s popular So You Think You Can Dance? show.