Aishwarya
rai
Following a successful modeling career, Rai made her acting debut in 1997 with Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar, a semi-biographical political drama, featuring Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, Tabu and Revathi. The film was a critical success and among other awards, won the Best Film award at the Belgrade International Film Festival Rai featured as Pushpavalli and Kalpana – dual roles; the latter was a fictionalised portrayal of politician and former actress Jayalalithaa. Due to Rai's weak Tamil-speaking skills, her dialogues in the film were dubbed by a dubbing artist. That same year, she was cast as Ashi, a naive teenager in her first Bollywood film – Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya, a romantic comedy opposite Bobby Deol. The film was a commercial failure, and reviewers were critical of the film and Rai's acting ability.
Rai next appeared in the 1998 big-budget Tamil romantic drama Jeans,
directed by S. Shankar and co-starring Prashanth and Nassar. Rai played Madhumita,
a young woman who travels to the United States to seek medical attention for
her ailing grandmother. A commercial success, the film earned Rai praise from
film critics for her dancing skills.Unlike in Iruvar, Rai practiced and
dubbed for her own lines in the film. Jeans was later submitted as
India's official entry to the Academy Awards for 1998. Her first role in 1999
was in the melodrama Aa Ab Laut Chalen. Directed by Rishi Kapoor, the
film was a critical failure and had a below average performance at the box
office. Rai's portrayal of Pooja Walia, a traditional Indian woman living in
the United States, met with negative reviews; Rediff.com published,
"Aishwarya Rai sports a plastic smile and never gets a scene where she can
portray any depth. All she does is cry and smile and look pretty".
Her next release, the romantic drama Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, marked a significant turning point in her career. The film, an adaptation of Maitreyi Devi's Bengali novel Na Hanyate, was directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and co-starred Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan. She played the leading role of Nandini, a Gujarati woman who is forced into wedlock (with Devgan's character) despite being in love with another man (played by Khan). TheMovieReport.com praised Rai's performance over her co-actors and noted, "Rai, in a luminous, award-winning performance (largely considered her big dramatic breakthrough--and justifiably so), fills in the conflicted emotional shades that Khan fails to bring with his one-dimensional presence". Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam emerged as a major commercial success and won Rai a Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Rai next took the leading role of Mansi, an aspiring singer, in Subhash Ghai's musical Taal; alongside Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor, Amrish Puri and Alok Nath.A moderate domestic success, Taal was notable for being the first Indian film to feature in the top twenty listing at the American box-office.Rai received a second Best Actress nomination that year at the Filmfare Awards ceremony.
In 2000, Rai starred in Kandukondain Kandukondain, a Tamil language adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility. Directed by Rajiv Menon, the film also starred Tabu, Mammooty and Ajith Kumar in prominent roles. Rai was cast as Meenakshi (based on the character of Marianne Dashwood), the younger sister of Tabu's character. The film was a critical and commercial success and earned Rai positive comments from critics; a review carried by The Indian Express summarised, "Attacking her role with just the perfect dollop of innocence, Aishwarya does full justice to her part, and matches up perfectly to Tabu
Aishwarya
rai