Padukone was born on 5 January 1986 in Copenhagen, Denmark to Konkani-speaking parents. Her father, Prakash Padukone, is a former professional badminton player and her mother, Ujjala, is a travel agent. Her younger sister, Anisha, is a golfer. Her paternal grandfather, Ramesh, was a secretary of the Mysore Badminton Association. The family relocated to Bangalore, India when Padukone was a year old. She was educated at Bangalore's Sophia High School and completed her pre-university education at Mount Carmel College. She subsequently enrolled at the Indira Gandhi National Open University for a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology but later quit it due to scheduling conflicts with her modelling career.
Padukone has said that she was socially awkward as a child and did not have many friends. The focus of her life was badminton, which she played competitively from a young age. Describing her daily routine in a 2012 interview, Padukone said, "I would wake up at five in the morning, go for physical training, go to school, again go for playing badminton, finish my homework, and go to sleep."Padukone continued to pursue a career in badminton throughout her school years and played the sport in national level championships. She also played baseball in a few state level tournaments. While concentrating on her education and sporting career, Padukone also worked as a child model, first appearing in a couple of advertising campaigns at the age of eight. In the tenth grade, she changed focus and decided to become a fashion model. She later explained, "I realised that I was playing the game only because it ran in the family. So, I asked my father if I could give up the game and he wasn't upset at all." In 2004, she began a full-time career as a model under the tutelage of Prasad Bidapa.
Early in her career, Padukone gained recognition with a television commercial for the soap Liril and modelled for various other brands and products. In 2005, she made her runway debut at the Lakme Fashion Week for designer Suneet Varma and won the "Model of the Year" award at the Kingfisher Fashion Awards. Padukone's fame increased when she appeared in a highly popular print campaign for the 2006 Kingfisher Calendar; the designer Wendell Rodricks commented, "Since Aishwarya Rai, we haven't had a girl as beautiful and fresh." Rodricks had spotted her at a Ganjam jewellery class he was teaching and signed her up with the Matrix agency. At the age of 21, Padukone relocated to Mumbai and stayed at her aunt's home. That year, she gained wider recognition by featuring in the music video for Himesh Reshammiya's song "Naam Hai Tera".
Padukone soon began to receive offers for film roles. Believing herself to be too inexperienced as an actor, she instead enrolled for a course at Anupam Kher's film academy. Following much media speculation, the director Farah Khan, who had noticed her in Reshammiya's music video, made the decision to cast her for a role in Happy New Year. Fashion designer Wendell Rodricks also takes credit in helping her get the role. Farah Khan was looking for a model to star in her next film, and got in touch with Malaika Arora. Rodricks, for whom Padukone had been modelling for roughly two years then, recommended her to Arora, a close friend of his, who in turn recommended her to Khan in 2007.
Acting career
Padukone announced in 2006 that she would make her film debut with Aishwarya, a Kannada film directed by Indrajit Lankesh. The romantic comedy was a remake of the Telugu film Manmadhudu, and she was cast in the title role opposite the actor Upendra. The film proved to be a major commercial success. RG Vijayasarathy of Rediff.com was appreciative of Padukone's screen presence but added that "she needs to work on her emotional scenes."
By the end of 2006, Farah Khan's Happy New Year was shelved, and Khan had instead cast Padukone for the reincarnation melodrama Om Shanti Om (2007). Om Shanti Om was a commercial success, and emerged as the highest-grossing film of the year, with a global revenue of ₹1.49 billion (US$21 million). She followed this success with the role of Gayatri (one of star Ranbir Kapoor's love interests), a feisty student in Australia who moonlights as a cab driver in Yash Raj Films' romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008). The film was a financial success. Padukone's first release of 2009 came alongside Akshay Kumar in the Nikhil Advani-directed kung fu comedy Chandni Chowk To China, in which she portrayed the dual roles of Indian-Chinese twin sisters Sakhi and Suzy. That same year, Padukone featured in an item number (for a song called "Love Mera Hit Hit") in the drama Billu, following which she appeared alongside Saif Ali Khan in the romantic drama Love Aaj Kal from the writer-director Imtiaz Ali. At the 55th Filmfare Awards Padukone received a nomination for Best Actress.
Padukone had five film releases in 2010. Her most economically profitable film that year was Sajid Khan's ₹1.15 billion (US$16 million)-grossing comedy film Housefull in which she featured alongside an ensemble cast including Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Lara Dutta, Arjun Rampal, Jiah Khan, and Boman Irani.
Padukone began 2011 with an item number in Rohan Sippy's Dum Maaro Dum. Her final appearance that year was in Rohit Dhawan's comedy-drama Desi Boyz alongside Akshay Kumar, John Abraham and Chitrangada Singh, a role that failed to propel her career forward. In an interview for The Indian Express, Padukone said that her starring role in the 2012 Homi Adajania-directed romantic comedy Cocktail marked a significant turning point in her career. In 2013, Padukone established herself as a leading actress of contemporary Hindi cinema by featuring in four of the top-grossing productions of the year.
Her next appearance was opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Rohit Shetty's action-comedy film Chennai Express. She played Meenalochini Azhagusundaram, a Tamil girl on the run from her father (a local don), which required that she adopt a Tamil accent. Critical opinion on her accent was mixed, but her performance received praise Padukone next played opposite Ranveer Singh in Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, an adaptation of the Shakespearean tragedy of Romeo and Juliet from director Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her role was Leela, a Gujarati girl based on the character of Juliet. Her performances in Chennai Express and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela won her several awards, including the Screen Award for Best Actress for both films and the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for the latter.
In 2014, Padukone featured opposite Rajinikanth in the Tamil film Kochadaiiyaan, a period drama that was shot using motion capture technology.Later that year, she starred opposite Shah Rukh Khan for the third time in Farah Khan's renewal of Happy New Year. Following an appearance in Homi Adajania's online video on feminism, entitled My Choice, Padukone took on the role of a headstrong Bengali architect who cares for her hypochondriac father (played by Amitabh Bachchan), in Shoojit Sircar's comedy-drama Piku (2015). Piku emerged as a box office hit, and garnered Padukone several awards, including second Best Actress awards at Filmfare and Screen.
Later in 2015, Padukone played the part of a businessperson who helps Ranbir Kapoor's character overcome his conflicts in Imtiaz Ali's romantic drama Tamasha. Padukone reunited with Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ranveer Singh in Bajirao Mastani, a historical drama about a tragic extramarital affair.
The action film XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017), in which Padukone played the lead female role of Serena Unger, opposite Vin Diesel, marked her first project in Hollywood. In 2018, Padukone portrayed Rani Padmavati, a Rajput queen who commits jauhar (self-immolation) to protect herself from the Muslim invader Alauddin Khilji, in the period drama Padmaavat; it marked her third collaboration with Bhansali and Singh. Padmaavat is one of the most expensive Hindi film, and with earnings of ₹5.45 billion (US$76 million), it is Padukone's highest-grossing release and one of Indian cinema's biggest grossers. She received another Best Actress nomination at Filmfare.
Upcoming projects
Padukone will star as an acid attack survivor (based on Laxmi Agarwal) in Chhapaak, a drama by Meghna Gulzar, which will mark her first production venture under her company KA Entertainment. Her next production venture will be 83, a sports film about India's victory at the 1983 Cricket World Cup, starring Ranveer Singh as Kapil Dev, in which she will also take on the role of Dev's wife, Romi. Padukone has also committed to star alongside Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ananya Panday in Shakun Batra's as-yet untitled romantic drama, and to portray Draupadi in a retelling of the Mahabharata from her character's perspective, which she will also be producing.
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