Taking Centre Stage

Deepika Padukone has had several hits over the past few years. With her latest, Padmaavat, she continues to be at the top of her game.

- Naandika Tripathi & Naini Thaker

LEADING THE WAY DOWN A FLIGHT of steps, with other Rajput women behind her, into a wall of flames with a smile of victory was the last time we saw Deepika Padukone on screen.

In person, she’s sitting across us at a five-star hotel in suburban Mumbai, without a hint of make-up. Her hair is tied in a simple bun, she is wearing a black oversized hoodie and sneakers, and the smile that has lit up the screen, from her role as Shantipriya in her debut film Om Shanti Om to Rani Padmavati in Padmaavat.

She has reasons enough to smile. It’s five days before her wedding with actor Ranveer Singh. And Padmaavat, for which she reportedly earned 12 crore, has been, at 300 crore, the highest grossing movie this year. That puts her right at the top of her game as well as makes her the first female celebrity to make it into the top five of the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list. She has consistently delivered hits in the last six years, be it large-scale films like Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013) and Bajirao Mastani (2015) or smaller films like Finding Fanny (2014) and Piku (2015, which made 151 crore), proving herself to be one of the most bankable actors in the industry.

Not that she planned on an eclectic mix of movies or picked them with an eye on the box office alone. “A film like