She worked as a model before starting her acting career, and ultimately won the Miss World pageant in 1994. Often cited by the media as the “most beautiful woman in the world”, Rai made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film Iruvar (1997), and had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie Jeans (1998). in 2002 she appeared in Bhansali’s Devdas, for which she won her second Filmfare Best Actress Award. She later appeared in films like Guru (2007), Jodhaa Akbar (2008), and Enthiran (2010), which were commercially and critically successful. She is married to fellow actor Abhishek Bachchan. She has one elder brother, Aditya Rai, who is an engineer in the merchant navy.
