Vidya Balan born on January 1st, 1982 in Palakkad, Kerala. She is from the Iyer community. She belongs from a middleclass family. Vidya Balan was brought up in Mumbai

Born to P. R. Balan, the Vice President of ETC Channel and mother, a housewife, Vidya Balan did her schooling from St Antony's School and later on joined St Xavier's College from where she graduated in sociology.

When she was doing her MA from Mumbai University, she was offered a role in a Malayalam; she gladly accepted an offer to star opposite her favorite actor Mohanlal in "Chakram".

However, the project was shelved mid-way and Vidya Balan had to wait for few more years to make her movie debut.

Later she was offered a Tamil movie, "Run" but after shooting for a brief while she was replaced by Meera Jasmine. Again she was offered and dropped from "Manasellam". The role finally went to Trisha.

As South Indian movies didn't fit into her scheme of things, she turned to television advertising and first appeared in a Surf Excel washing powder ad in 1998. The ad clicked and brought her more commercial campaigns.

A trained classical vocalist, Vidya Balan also appeared in music videos created by Pankaj Udhas, Shubha Mudgal and Euphoria. The beautiful actress then appeared in mega soap operas "Hanste Khelte" and Ektaa Kapoor's "Hum Paanch".

In 2005, she finally made her appearance on the big screen. She appeared in a Bengali film, Bhalo Theko, for which she won the Best Actress Anand Lok Puraskar award in Kolkata.

It was in Mumbai, during a pop concert, when filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra approached her to play the female lead in his movie Parineeta, to be directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

Vidya Balan had to go through 40 screen tests and 17 make-up shoots before she was finally chosen for the lead role in the film Parineeta. In this movie she portrayed a simple sari clad woman. She won the hearts of millions in her debut film through her talent and beauty.

The movie became a smash hit and her sterling performance in the movie won her sveral awards. Vidya Balan was soon a hot commodity in Bollywood and was asked to sign film contracts by many of the town's leading directors.

The stunning actress then went on to appear in several hit movies like "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" in Year 2006.

Year 2007 looked like a Vidya Balan film festival as six of her movies got released during the year, "Eklavya" "Salaam-E-Ishq", "Halla Bol", "Bhool Bhulaiya", "Hey Baby" and Mani Ratnam directed "Guru" in which she plays the role of a physically disabled woman. Her forthcoming "Kismat Konnection" is due to be released in 2008.

Vidya Balan has been making headlines in the media for her reported romantic links with co-star Shahid Kapoor.