Deepika Padukone / Dipika Padukone
The daughter of the renowned World Badminton Champion, Prakash Padukone, the girl known for her innocent looks and ravishing onscreen appearances, Deepika Padukone has certainly something that sets herself apart from the rest.

Deepika Padukone was born on 5th January 1986 in Bangalore, Karnataka. She has done her schooling in Bangalore. She has been modelling appearances in print and television advertising campaigns for Liril soap, Close-Up toothpaste and Limca, receiving many prestigious modelling offers, including brand ambassadorship of the Jewels of India, an annual jewellery exhibition. She hit the international scene when Maybelline made her their new international cover face.

At the fifth annual Kingfisher Fashion Awards, for Indian models and designers, she was awarded the title of Model of the Year. Shortly afterwards, she was chosen as one of the models for the Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar for 2006, thus cementing her reputation as a supermodel. She also bagged two trophies at the Idea Zee F Awards in 2006 - Female Model of the year (Commercial Assignments) and Fresh Face of the year.

Like many successful models before her Deepika is turning to acting in movies. She started by starring in the music video for Naam Hai Tera a song from the pop album Aap Ka Suroor, an independent album by popular singer-composer Himesh Reshammiya.

Deepika recently made her cinematic debut in a Kannada film, Aishwarya, directed by Indrajit Lankesh co-starring Upendra.

The film has already been successful at the box-office, and Deepika has received rave reviews for her screen presence. Reportedly, she has also signed on two Hindi movies - Priyadarshan's forthcoming film, Pirate and Farah Khan's second directorial venture, Om Shanti Om.