Vidya balan Biography

Vidya Balan Biography :

Vidya Balan born January 1, 1982, in Palakkad, Kerala, is an Indian actress based in Mumbai, India.A part Malayali and a part Tamil Iyer from the town of Palakkad (Palghat) in Kerala, Vidya Balan grew up in Mumbai, attended St. Xavier’s College, Bombay and later the University of Mumbai. She graduated from college with a Sociology degree. She speaks several languages including Tamil, English, Hindi, Malayalam, and Bengali.

Her father, P.R. Balan, is the Vice President of ETC Channel and her mother is a housewife. She has an older sister, Priya Balan. She loves Indian classical music from Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasia to Shubha Mudgal and Kishori Amonkar. As a Hindu, Vidya has stated that she is “extremely spiritual”, having “firm faith in god” and has stated that she visits temples everyday.

She made her debut as a model in a Surf Excel advertisement in 1998. She has acted in scores of ad films, most of which were directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

A couple of months later, she featured in three music videos (again directed by Sarkar) for ‘Euphoria’, Shubha Mudgal and Pankaj Udhas.

Vidya Balan started work as an actress in the Malayalam movie Chakram, paired against Mohanlal, however the film was abandoned mid-way through production. After making her debut in television advertising as a model for a Surf Excel advertisement in 1998, she proceeded to do over 25 TV ads, (mostly directed by Pradeep Sarkar), followed with a variety of acting stints in music videos (Euphoria, Shubha Mudgal and Pankaj Udhas), Hindi TV soap operas (Hanste Khelte and Hum Paanch) and a Bengali movie, Bhaalo Theko, for which she won the Best Actress Anand Lok Puraskar award in Kolkata.