Hazel Keech Biography

The ‘Dirty Picture’ star was born on 1st January 1978 in Kerala to parents P.R Balan and his wife Saraswathy Balan in a Tamil speaking family. Inspite of Tamil and Malayalam, the languages most preferred in her house, she is also well versed in Hindi, Marathi, English and Bengali. She went to St. Anthony Girls’ High School and did her SocioloThe ‘Dirty Picture’ star was born on 1st January 1978 in Kerala to parents P.R Balan and his wife Saraswathy Balan in a Tamil speaking family. Inspite of Tamil and Malayalam, the languages most preferred in her house, she is also well versed in Hindi, Marathi, English and Bengali. She went to St. Anthony Girls’ High School and did her Sociology majors from St. Xavier’s College.

Later she went to study MA where her first film offer awaited her. She debuted as an actress in the Bengali film ‘Bhalo Theko’ (2003) for which she earned the Anandalok Puraskar Best Actress Award in Kolkata.

Before Bhalo Theko, she signed up the Malayalam movie ‘Chakram’ which was shelved and when later it was restarted, Meera Jasmine took Balan’s place. Her Bollywood debut was not easy with six months of audition before finally bagging the lead role in Pradeep Sarkar’s ‘Parineeta’ which got her critically acclaimed.

She eventually won the Best Debut award and a nomination for Best Actress in Filmfare. After rejecting a offer from the producer of ‘Manasellam’ which later went to Asin Thottumkal, she appeared in Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ in 2006. This venture of Vidya became the second highest grossing film of the year and brought accolades from critics.

Then in 2007, she did a supporting role in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Guru’ which did well at the box office. Her next release was Nikhil Advani’s ‘Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love’ failed commercially and critically but won Vidya some critical accolades. After such positive response for her performances, she went on to do ‘Eklavya: The Royal Guard’ which was selected as India’s Official Entry to the Oscars’ for the 80th Academy awards.

Her next box office success was Sajid Khan’s ‘Heyy Babyy’ with a worldwide gross of rupees 83.65 crore. Her next release was Priyadarshan’s psychological thriller ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’. She played the role of a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder which received appreciations from the critics.

She next appeared in Aziz Mirza’s ‘Kismat konnection’ which did not do well at the box office and neither was her character as Priya praised. In 2009, along with Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan this magical actress was seen in the movie ‘Paa’. She won a ‘Filmfare Best Actress Award’ and the ‘Stardust Best actress Award’ for her role as Amitabh Bachchan’s mother.

In 2010, she played the character of an abandoned wife in ‘Ishqiya’. She won the ‘Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress’ that year. In 2011, she appeared in Raj Kumar Gupta’s ‘No One Killed Jessica’.

In 2011 her much speculated movie ‘the Dirty Picture’ was released. The actress played the role of ‘Silk Smitha’ and received mixed reviews. Some felt that Vidya’s voluptuous body and appeal was very dry in fron of Smitha’s grace and charm while some just loved her performance. The movie however, was a blockbuster hit and she won her first National Film Award for Best Actress, Filmfare Award for Best Actress and Stardust Award for Best Actress. 2012 gave her no films till date but made her to confess her love about Siddhart Roy Kapoor. In an interview, she announced that she is dating this CEO of UTV Motion Pictures.gy majors from St. Xavier’s College.

Later she went to study MA where her first film offer awaited her. She debuted as an actress in the Bengali film ‘Bhalo Theko’ (2003) for which she earned the Anandalok Puraskar Best Actress Award in Kolkata.

Before Bhalo Theko, she signed up the Malayalam movie ‘Chakram’ which was shelved and when later it was restarted, Meera Jasmine took Balan’s place. Her Bollywood debut was not easy with six months of audition before finally bagging the lead role in Pradeep Sarkar’s ‘Parineeta’ which got her critically acclaimed.

She eventually won the Best Debut award and a nomination for Best Actress in Filmfare. After rejecting a offer from the producer of ‘Manasellam’ which later went to Asin Thottumkal, she appeared in Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ in 2006. This venture of Vidya became the second highest grossing film of the year and brought accolades from critics.

Then in 2007, she did a supporting role in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Guru’ which did well at the box office. Her next release was Nikhil Advani’s ‘Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love’ failed commercially and critically but won Vidya some critical accolades. After such positive response for her performances, she went on to do ‘Eklavya: The Royal Guard’ which was selected as India’s Official Entry to the Oscars’ for the 80th Academy awards.

Her next box office success was Sajid Khan’s ‘Heyy Babyy’ with a worldwide gross of rupees 83.65 crore. Her next release was Priyadarshan’s psychological thriller ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa’. She played the role of a woman suffering from dissociative identity disorder which received appreciations from the critics.

She next appeared in Aziz Mirza’s ‘Kismat konnection’ which did not do well at the box office and neither was her character as Priya praised. In 2009, along with Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan this magical actress was seen in the movie ‘Paa’. She won a ‘Filmfare Best Actress Award’ and the ‘Stardust Best actress Award’ for her role as Amitabh Bachchan’s mother.

In 2010, she played the character of an abandoned wife in ‘Ishqiya’. She won the ‘Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress’ that year. In 2011, she appeared in Raj Kumar Gupta’s ‘No One Killed Jessica’.

In 2011 her much speculated movie ‘the Dirty Picture’ was released. The actress played the role of ‘Silk Smitha’ and received mixed reviews. Some felt that Vidya’s voluptuous body and appeal was very dry in fron of Smitha’s grace and charm while some just loved her performance. The movie however, was a blockbuster hit and she won her first National Film Award for Best Actress, Filmfare Award for Best Actress and Stardust Award for Best Actress. 2012 gave her no films till date but made her to confess her love about Siddhart Roy Kapoor. In an interview, she announced that she is dating this CEO of UTV Motion Pictures.