Aishwarya Rai Bachchan celebrates her 50th birthday today. Despite aging, the beauty queen of Bollywood continues to mesmerize her fans with her beauty, grace, and poise even today be it on the ramp walk, red carpet, or in the movies.
She has been trolled, fat-shamed, age-shamed, and faced a lot of backlash for her looks and fashion choices but continues to be the first choice for leading beauty brands like L’Oreal because no one can match the divine elegance and beauty that the Bachchan bahu represents.
Over the years she has worked with many eminent actors and directors and given some big hits. However, there have been certain milestone movies that have defined her career.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
Aishwarya made her debut in the film world with Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar and her first Bollywood film was Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya with Bobby Deol. However, her first big movie in the film industry was Sanjay Leela Bhansali ’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. SLB’s film gave the beauty queen ample chance to prove her prowess both as an actress and a dancer.
While she was already famous as the Miss World and had a huge fan following many doubted whether she would turn out to be equally good as an actress. Undoubtedly it was her chemistry with Salman Khan and the love story that followed the movie that created quite a stir but Aishwarya proved that she is much more than just a beauty.
Devdas
Her second movie with SLB in which she was paired with Shah Rukh Khan also proved yet again that she is at par with the best in the industry since she was pitted against none other than the number one Bollywood superstar Madhuri Dixit. However, Ash proved her mettle and her pair with SRK also became a big hit. She worked in multiple movies with Shah Rukh Khan including Mohabbatein and Josh.
Fans got to see them in one frame after a long time in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. But Devdas remains the best movie of the pair to date.
Dhoom 2
The best movie from the Dhoom franchise, the sequel starred Hrithik Roshan as the antagonist while her then-boyfriend Abhishek Bachchan was the male lead. Aishwarya donned the glamour girl look of Surili and matched the Greek God Hrithik frame by frame in both beauty and dance. To date it is one of the best dream pairs to have graced Bollywood’s big screen and who can forget the sensational liplock between the two that created so much stir?
Apart from the family of Big B who were upset that their would-be-bahu did such a sensuous scene with Hrithik, there were a few people who even sent Aishwarya legal notices for doing it which was so funny.
Jodhaa Akbar
Hrithik and Aishwarya once again made a dream pair for Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodhaa Akbar. The movie was very successful. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as the Rajput princess and then the Mughal queen Jodhaabai looked beautiful and royal and was irreplaceable. It was expected that Ash would get a National Award in the Best Actress category for Jodhaa Akbar but the award went to Priyanka Chopra Jonas for Fashion. Jaya Bachchan even said that not PeeCee but her bahu was the perfect contender to win the National award that year.
Guru
Considered to be a loose adaptation of Dhirubhai Ambani’s life Guru is one of the best movies of Abhishek Bachchan. But Aishwarya Rai Bachchan managed to make a strong impact as his wife and proved that even if she gets less screen space she can still dominate the screen with both her beauty and acting. Ash has been a muse for Mani Ratnam ever since she worked with him for Iruvar and since then he has given her some major roles to portray on the big screen.
Be it Guru, Raavan, or the recent portrayal of Nandini in PS1 and PS2, Mani Ratnam has always given Aishwarya good roles and she has never disappointed.