Lightning Wallpaper: November 2008

Nicole Kidman

Nicole Mary Kidman is an Academy Award-winning actress, a UN Citizen of the World award winning humanitarian and a UNIFEM and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In 2006, Kidman was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest civilian honour.In 2006, she was also the highest-paid actress in the motion picture industry.

After making various appearances in film and television, Kidman received her breakthrough role in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Her performances in several films, such as To Die For (1995), Moulin Rouge! , and The Hours , have won her much critical acclaim. In 2003, Kidman received her Star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California. She is also well-known for her former marriage to the actor Tom Cruise and her current marriage to the country musician Keith Urban. Because she was born to Australian parents in Hawaii, Kidman has dual citizenship of Australia and the United States.

Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father, Dr Antony David Kidman, is a biochemist, clinical psychologist and author, with an office in Lane Cove, Sydney.Her mother, Janelle Ann , is a nursing instructor who edits her husband's books and was a member of the Women's Electoral Lobby. At the time of Nicole Kidman's birth, her father was a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health of the United States. The family returned to Australia permanently when Kidman was four years old and Kidman's parents now reside on Sydney's North Shore. Kidman has a younger sister, Antonia Kidman, who is a journalist.

Kidman attended Lane Cove Public School in her primary school years, and then she attended the North Sydney Girls' High School. She then studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney, along with her friend Naomi Watts. This was followed by studies at the Australian Theatre for Young People.

Kidman's first appearance in film came in 1983 when, as a fifteen year-old, she appeared in the Pat Wilson music video for the song "Bop Girl". By the end of the year she had secured a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and four film roles, including BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s, she appeared in several Australian productions, including the soap opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam,Emerald City, and Bangkok Hilton.

Not known as a singer prior to Moulin Rouge!, Kidman had several well-received vocal performances in the film. Her collaboration with Ewan McGregor on the song "Come What May" from the film's soundtrack debuted and peaked at 27 in the UK Singles Chart. But there was much controversy to whether Nicole Kidman should have been dubbed due to her "shocking, not to mention boring" voice and many people said she "should never sing again for money, or in public". Later she collaborated with Robbie Williams on the song "Somethin' Stupid", a cover of the old swing song on Williams' swing covers album Swing When You're Winning. It debuted and peaked at 8 in the Australian ARIAnet Singles Chart, and at number 1 for three weeks in the UK. It was the UK Christmas number 1 Single for 2001.

Bipasha Basu

Bipasha Basu

Bipasha Basu is an Indian Bollywood actress and model. She was the winner of the Ford's Godrej Cinthol Supermodel contest for 1996 and is currently one of the mainstream actresses in Bollywood. She is often cited by popular magazines and newspapers as one of Asia's sexiest celebrity women.

Basu was born in New Delhi, India, into a Bengali family. She is the second of three daughters to her parents, the elder being Bidisha, and the younger—Vijayeta. Although she was born in New Delhi, her family later moved to Kolkata.

According to her, she had come into modelling and acting quite by accident, because initially she had planned to study medicine.Basu studied science till the 12th standard at Bhavan's Gangabux Kanoria Vidyamandir and later took up commerce at The Bhawanipur Gujarati Education Society College, an undergraduate college affiliated with the University of Calcutta. In Kolkata, she did modelling and rampshows partime. Although, as pointed above, she intended to become a doctor, her aversion for dissections made her opt for chartered accountancy.However, in 1996, she met well-known model Mehr Jessia in Kolkata; the latter suggested that Basu take part in the Godrej Cinthol Supermodel contest. She eventually participated, and won the contest.

After winning the Ford Godrej Cinthol contest, Basu was flown to New York by the Ford Company, where she had a successful modelling career at the age of 17.

Basu made her film debut in Abbas Mustan's Ajnabee, with Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol and Kareena Kapoor. She played a married woman who goes all out to woo her husband’s married friend, and eventually won the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award for her performance.

In 2002, Basu starred in Vikram Bhatt's thriller Raaz. The film was a big commercial success and surfaced as the biggest hit of that year.For her performance in the film, she received her first Best Actress nomination at the Filmfare. One review in The Tribune noted, "...it is Bipasha Basu who steals the show with her fine performance.

Besides acting, Bips, as she is fondly called, did the famous video "Tu" for Sonu Nigam's album, Kismat back in her early days before she became an actress. She also made a guest appearance in Jay Sean's music video Stolen.

In 2006, she won popular acclaim for her performance in an Item number during the song Beedi in the film Omkara. The song was a national hit, and Basu's pictuarisation was appreciated.

In 2008 Basu starred in Race, her second collaboration with duo Abbas Mustan, with whom she debuted in Bollywood. Co-starring Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Anil Kapoor and Katrina Kaif, the film performed well at the box office, and Basu's performance was appreciated by critics. Taran Adarsh of indiaFM described her performance as "her best work so far. She’s superb".She also received good reviews for her role in Bachna Ae Haseeno opposite Ranbir Kapoor.

Basu is currently dating actor John Abraham. The couple have been dating since late 2002. She previously dated fellow Bollywood actors Milind Soman and Dino Morea.

In 2006, Basu claimed to have been harassed by organizers of the India Day Parade in Edison, New Jersey. Basu was initially scheduled to lead the parade on August 13, 2006. Basu eventually appeared on stage late, according to her, because of the harassment. She said, "I wanted to attend the parade, but I could not." She explained that she was harassed physically and mentally in the car by two people who were taking her to the parade.

Mallika Sherawat

Mallika Sherawat

Mallika Sherawat as Reema Lamba in Karnal, Haryana, India is a popular Indian actress and model. Known for her public openness, she is frequently featured in the Indian media as a sex symbol.

Sherawat's birth name is Reema Lamba; she says that she adopted the screen name of "Mallika", meaning "empress" to avoid confusion with other actresses named Reema. "Sherawat" is her mother's maiden name. She has stated that she uses her mother's maiden name because of all the support her mother has provided for her. She has obtained a degree in Indian philosophy from Miranda House, Delhi University.

Mallika's onscreen debut was in Lak Tunoo, a music video by Surjit Bindrakhia. She attracted wide notice with her appearance in the 2003 movie Khwahish. In 2004, she starred in Murder, a film inspired by Hollywood's Unfaithful. She received a nomination for Best Actress at the Zee Cine Awards ceremony for her performance in Murder. The film went on to become one of the biggest hits of the year.

Since then, Sherawat has been known for her courage to express her opinions in public, as well as because of the reaction to some of her statements.

She also made news when she won a small role in a Jackie Chan movie, The Myth; she made a widely publicized appearance at the Cannes Film Festival to promote The Myth.

However, her performance in the 2006 film Pyaar Ke Side Effects co-starring Rahul Bose won her praise from around the industry,and the film also garnered decent collections at the box office becoming a moderate success.

She is now beginning to work in the Kollywood (Tamil) film industry as well after her item number in a Kannada film. Her debut was Dasavathaaram, starring Kamal Haasan, Asin, and Jayapradha, in which she plays one of the lead antagonists.

Her first 2007 release was Himesh Reshammiya's Aap Ka Suroor - The Real Love Story, where she played a "vampish role".Mallika herself has protested, saying that it is a negative role but not a vamp role.With Aap Ka Suroor she has become the most expensive "Item Girl",as she charged Rs. 1.5 crore for her Item number in the movie. Aap Ka Suroor did well at the box office. Her last release of 2007 was Welcome which also did well at the box office receiving blockbuster status.

Kareena Kapoor

Kareena Kapoor

Kareena Kapoor is an Indian film actress appearing in Bollywood films. Born into the Kapoor film family, she made her acting debut with Refugee, for which she won a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award. In 2001, Kapoor received her first commercial success with her second release, Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai and later appeared in Karan Johar's melodrama Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, which became India's top-grossing film in the overseas market that year and her biggest commercial success to date.

After receiving negative reviews due to a series of unsuccessful films and repetitive roles between 2002 and 2003, Kapoor accepted more demanding parts to avoid being typecast. Her portrayal of a sex worker in Chameli (2004) proved to be the turning point in her career and garnered her the Filmfare Special Performance Award.She later received two Critics Awards for Best Actress at the Filmfare ceremony for her performances in the critically acclaimed Dev (2004) and Omkara (2006). After taking on such a range of acting roles between 2004 and 2006, she was recognized for displaying versatility as an actress.

In 2007, Kapoor earned a Filmfare Best Actress Award for her performance in the commercially successful comedy-romance Jab We Met. Although the box office earnings of her films have varied considerably, Kapoor has established herself as one of the leading contemporary actresses in the Hindi film industry.

Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India into the Kapoor film family of Punjabi origin, Kapoor is the youngest daughter of actors Randhir Kapoor and Babita. According to Kapoor, her first name was derived from the book Anna Karenina.She is the granddaughter of actor and filmmaker Raj Kapoor and the great granddaughter of Prithviraj Kapoor. Bebo, as she is fondly called, is also the sister of actress Karisma Kapoor and the niece of actor Rishi Kapoor.

Despite being born into a successful acting family, her father insisted that she marry early according to Indian tradition and avoid acting.In an interview with Encyclopedia Britannica, he stated that the problem was not women acting itself, given that both he and his brother married well-known actresses as did their uncles. Rather, his concerns arose from the purported incompatibility between acting and the maternal duties and responsibility of women in the family.This led to irreconcilable differences between her parents and resulted in her mother leaving the house along with Kapoor and her older sister.She was raised by her mother, who, with difficulty, worked several jobs to support the family, until Karisma began work as an actress in 1991.

Kapoor was educated at Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai, and later Welham Girls Boarding School in Dehradun. After studying commerce at Mithibai College, Vile Parle for two years, she embarked upon a three-month summer course in microcomputers at Harvard University.She later developed an interest in law and enrolled at the Government's Law College in Churchgate.After completing one year there, she returned to her initial plan to become an actress and commenced training under Kishore Namit Kapoor's Acting Institute.

Kapoor was initially scheduled to make her debut in Rakesh Roshan's Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000), opposite his son, Hrithik Roshan.However, several days into the filming, she abandoned the project and later explained that, "It was probably destined that I was not to be in the film. After all, it was a launch for his son. The whole focus was on the boy. Now I am glad I did not do the movie.

After turning down Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai, Kapoor made her acting debut later that same year in J.P. Dutta's war drama Refugee, opposite Abhishek Bachchan. Set during the Indo-Pakistani conflicts, the film centers on a young man known simply as Refugee (played by Bachchan) who illegally transports civilians back and forth across the Pakistan border. Kapoor portrayed the role of Naaz, a Bangladeshi girl who falls in love with him while migrating to Pakistan. Her performance was acclaimed by critics; Taran Adarsh of indiaFM wrote, "Kareena Kapoor has a magnetic personality, which will make the viewer fall in love with her instantly. What surprises you is the ease with which she emotes the most difficult of scenes .There's no denying the fact that she is a natural performer who is very camera friendly.Kapoor's performance earned her the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award, and Refugee went on to become the fifth-highest grossing film of the year.

In 2001, Kapoor starred opposite Tusshar Kapoor in Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai, a romantic drama film directed by Satish Kaushik. Revolving around the story about a troubled young man who falls in love with Pooja, played by Kareena, the film went on to become one of the highest earners of the year.However, subsequent releases such as Yaadein and Ajnabee that followed for Kapoor did indifferent business at the box office.

Later that year, she starred in Santosh Sivan's period epic Asoka, a partly fictionalized account of the life of Ashoka the Great (304 BC–232 BC), one of the noted Indian emperors of the Maurya Empire. Featured opposite Shahrukh Khan who took centre stage as Ashoka, Kapoor portrayed the character of Kaurwaki, a princess of Kalinga with whom Ashoka falls deeply in love. While the film received generally positive reviews, Kapoor's acting performance received a mixed reaction from some critics, with some believing her contribution to the film was primarily for aesthetic purposes. A review on Rediff.com said about her performance, "Kareena flashes a lot of skin and fills up the screen for a large portion of the first half. While a large portion of the first half is focused on the emerging romance between the runaway prince and herself and to their credit they do manage to whip up some on-screen chemistry, I am still unsure as to her acting abilities".Nonetheless, her performance was praised by some critics and earned her a first nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards.