Biography:
Vidya Balan, then Vidya Iyer, was signed to appear in the Malayalam film Chakram, which was shelved. She was then signed in Tamil by Lingusamy for his Run, but for reasons undisclosed, she was dropped after a first schedule and replaced by Meera Jasmine. In the jinx driven industry Vidya was dropped from her second Tamil movie "Manasellam" opposite to Srikanth in Telugu, on the grounds of 'non-performance' and replaced by Trisha Krishnan.She then turned to television advertising. From 1998 onwards, she appeared in numerous television ads, many of which were directed by Pradeep Sarkar. She also took supporting roles in music videos, appearing with singers and bands such as Euphoria, Shubha Mudgal, and Pankaj Udhas, and acted in Hindi soap operas like "Hum Paanch". She portrayed the role of Radhika Mathur in few episodes of season 1 of "Hum Paanch" which was first aired in 1995. Since she is obviously older than 15 in these episodes, her repeated claims to have been born in 1982 is believed to be false.In 2005, she finally made her appearance on the big screen, in two movies. She appeared in a Bengali film, "Bhalo Theko", for which she won the Best Actress Anand Lok Puraskar award in Kolkata. Also in 2005, Balan made her Hindi film debut in Parineeta. The film was very successful at the box office.After the success of Parineeta the same producer who dropped Vidya Balan from Manasellam saying that she was not emoting properly & non photogenic, was after her to sign her opposite to none other than Kamal Hassan for "Dasavatharam". But Vidya Balan rejected the offer and Asin Thottumkal was signed instead
