Vidya Balan’s girl-next-door looks belie her versatility and sexiness. She was known early in her career for the sweetness and vulnerability she exuded in her strong Bollywood debut, the award-winning Parineeta (2005), as well as in her critically praised performances in the 2007 films Guru, Salaam-E-Ishq, and Eklavya. But audiences discovered a much different side of her in Ishqiya (2010), a curry Western in which she played a commanding, sexually bold woman. The following year, she diminished her natural prettiness to play the dowdy, cowed sister of a murder victim in No One Killed Jessica. And in her upcoming release, The Dirty Picture, she portrays real-life soft-porn star Silk Smitha. Her past hits include Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) and Heyy Babyy (2007). Her 2008 film Kismat Konnection with Shahid Kapoor (with whom she was romantically linked at the time), failed to do well, despite high expectations. In 2009, she won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her performance as a courageous single mother to a disease-afflicted son in Paa.
