We all love Deepika Padukone, and believe that she is the numero uno actress in Bollywood at the moment. We can’t wait for another one of her avant garde performances in Padmaavat, which releases this week. But before she made a scintillating debut opposite SRK with Om Shanti Om, Deepika had made a name for herself in the modelling world, and she was one of the Kingisher Calendar girls in 2006 which was shot in Australia. 

Let’s take a look at some of the images from the shoot. 

She also starred in the music video of Himesh Reshammiya’s superhit number Naam Hai Tera. 

Her first break in Bollywood came with the help of designer Wendell Rodericks, for whom she was walking the ramp at the Lakme Fashion Week. Rodericks suggested her to Malaika Arora Khan (who was asked by Farah Khan to look for a modeel to star opposite SRK), and that’s how the story goes. 

“To have your movie released on the same day as Diwali, I think that’s a co-incidence,” Deepika told Zoom in an interview before the release of OSO. 

In the film, Deepika plays a superstar from the 70s called Shanti Priya whereas SRK plays a mere junior artiste who falls in love with the actress. “Very honestly, I don’t think I could have asked for a better launch film. I’ve got to learn a lot from SRK and Farah. And from Arjun and Shreyas, who I got to interact with,” she said in the same interview with Zoom. 

But all that is in the past. At the current moment, Deepika has grown by leaps and bounds as both a person and an actress. She was brave enough to talk about issues like depression, and also take on a major media house like The Times Group. As an actress, she has proved her mettle in both comedy (Chennai Express) and tragedy (Ram Leela). It’s evident that she puts in a lot of hard work into every role, and isn’t afraid of doing experimental cinema like Piku and Finding Fanny as well. 

We hope Padmaavat is a huge success, and catapults Deepika into a whole different spectrum of superstardom.