Some impressions stick for no apparent reason. On one of my earliest assignments as a rookie journalist at the Lakme Fashion Week in New Delhi, trailing behind my senior editor as she primed me on the who’s who of the fashion world, we stopped to greet a young model in the foyer. She was the season’s toast, set to make her fashion-week debut. It was 2005 and you had to be living under a rock to not be familiar with the Liril sensation — Deepika Padukone. An interview was set up, the first of several brief encounters in Delhi during her appearances at fashion weeks — till Bollywood claimed her in toto.
Even in those early years, there was a gravitas to Padukone that was hard to miss. She spoke unhurriedly, deliberating on her responses, and brought to interactions the full focus of her attention. She could blend in and still manage to stand out, held steady, it seemed, by a rootedness and resolve entirely her own. In the years since, it has been fascinating to watch Padukone’s rise and rise as an actor, producer, entrepreneur, mental-health advocate and international star.
From a monster hit to billboards in Paris to the unveiling of the trophy at the FIFA World Cup finals 2022, Padukone is everything, everywhere, all at once. The 2021 Celebrity Brand Valuation report by Duff and Phelps, a multinational finance company, estimated her brand value at $51.6 million. Days before her appearance at the Oscars as a presenter — only the third Indian to have had the honour after Persis Khambatta in 1980 and Priyanka Chopra Jonas in 2016 — she was at the Paris Fashion Week to attend the Nicolas Ghesquière for Louis Vuitton show, the brand whose global ambassador Padukone became in 2022, making her the first Indian to represent the French luxury fashion house. She’s also the global face of French luxury brand Cartier and of Qatar Airways; the ambassador of American lifestyle brand Pottery Barn, denim giant Levi’s and German sportswear brand Adidas.
Last year, she served on the jury of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, the first Indian in nearly a decade after Vidya Balan in 2013. Only a handful of other Indians have had the honour, including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in 2003 and Sharmila Tagore in 2009. Writer Arundhati Roy served as a jury in 2000. In the last five years, Padukone has also made it to Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential and impactful people in the world twice.
Of course, Padukone is not the first home-grown celebrity to have acquired such international clout. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the face of luxury brands such as Longines, L’Oreal Paris and De Beers Diamonds, was among the earliest. As a global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and recipient of the prestigious Danny Kaye Humanitarian award, Chopra Jonas is yet another trailblazer. All three women were outsiders to a close-knit industry, all three forged their own paths. But Padukone stands out for a reason.
In 2017, the same year that Padukone made her Hollywood debut with xXx: Return of Xander Cage, Meryl Streep won the lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globe Awards. On the podium, the actor delivered a powerful speech referencing Donald Trump’s divisive politics, without naming the former US President. She spoke of how “the instinct to humiliate, when it’s modelled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful”, “filters down into everybody’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing…”
In the aftermath of Streep’s fiery speech and with intolerance and vigilante violence on the rise in India, a question became almost a red flag for superstars and celebrities during interviews: Why didn’t they speak up like their Western counterparts? A rare handful who did faced backlash. Most refused to engage with the question.
At the peak of her success, Padukone showed that she is capable of stepping up, with words and silence. In 2015, she spoke candidly of her battle with depression, the lonely, arduous road that even the most successful among us may walk. It opened up the conversation on mental health, encouraging many others in high-pressure public lives to speak of their own struggles.
Five years later, in January 2020, amid escalating tension over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act that saw violence break out at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Padukone made a brief unannounced stop on campus when she was in the city to promote her film Chhapaak. She stood quietly behind the protesting students, but the silence of one of the biggest female stars in the country, who had everything to risk, reverberated. She had long been a star. That moment transformed her into an icon.
Watching her at the Oscars, as she introduced Naatu Naatu from RRR, looking stunning in her Audrey Hepburn-esque Louis Vuitton gown, it seems befitting that Padukone has found an international audience. A successful woman makes for an attractive role model; one who uses her clout to stand up and be counted is worthy of celebration — at home and around the world.
paromita.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
