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Deepika Padukone Konkani/Kannada: ದೀಪಿಕಾ ಪಡುಕೋಣೆ;) is an Indian model turned actress who appears in Bollywood movies.
Deepika is of Mangalorean origin. Deepika was born to Ujwala and Prakash Padukone on January 5, 1986, in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her family moved to Bangalore, India, when she was only eleven months old. She is a Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin and her lineage hails from Padukone village in Kundapura Taluk of Udupi District, Karnataka, India. Her father, Prakash Padukone, was a badminton player of international repute, and her mother is a travel agent. Padukone also has a younger sister, Anisha, born in 1991.

Padukone attended Sophia High School in Bangalore. She completed her pre-university studies at Mount Carmel College in Bangalore, India. While in high school she played badminton at the state level like her father and was a member of her father`s badminton club. However, she was not keen on pursuing a career as a badminton player and abandoned it to concentrate on her ICSE exams.

While in college, Padukone pursued a career in modeling. Over the years, she has modeled for such Indian brand names as Liril, Dabur Lal powder, Close-Up toothpaste and Limca, and has been "brand ambassador" for the Jewels of India retail jewelery show. The cosmetics company Maybelline made her its international spokesperson.

At the fifth annual Kingfisher Fashion Awards she was awarded the title "Model of the Year". Shortly afterward, she was chosen as one of the models for the Kingfisher Swimsuit Calendar for 2006 and won two trophies at the Idea Zee Fashion Awards: "Female Model of the Year - (Commercial Assignments)" and "Fresh Face of the Year". Padukone was also chosen as the brand ambassador of Kingfisher Airlines and later Levi Strauss and Tissot SA.

After pursuing a successful career in modeling, Padukone branched out into acting. She started by starring in the music video for the song Naam Hai Tera from the independent pop album Aap Kaa Surroor by Himesh Reshammiya.

In 2006, Padukone made her cinematic debut in the Kannada film Aishwarya starring opposite actor Upendra. She later made a successful Bollywood debut in 2007 with Farah Khan`s international hit Om Shanti Om opposite Shahrukh Khan. The film featured her portraying 1970s star Shantipriya and later as Sandhya aka Sandy, a young woman who looks exactly like Shantipriya. Her performance was well received, earning the actress a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award as well as her first Filmfare Best Actress nomination. Taran Adarsh from indiaFM noted, "Deepika has all it takes to be a top star — the personality, the looks and yes, she`s supremely talented too. Standing in the same frame as SRK and getting it right is no small achievement. She comes as a whiff of fresh air!"

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