In the new world, authenticity is a prescription for the meaningful, examined life — the only kind worth living, if you have to go by a consensus of the ever-swelling, ever-peppy community of wellness gurus and practitioners. Authenticity is the new Prozac, the new goal of meditation. And no other celebrity fits the authenticity bill than Deepika Padukone at 37.
The 16 years since her Bollywood debut in Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om (2007), Padukone has steadily built her acting prowess, capitalising on a diversity of roles, until the biggest hit of her career this year with Shah Rukh Khan in Pathaan. Her Pathaan role required her to be at the best of her physical form and be a part of the film’s Hollywood-inspired action — more like an audition for the next Bond girl. Along the way, she has been articulate about her own struggles with mental health and started the Live Love Laugh Foundation to spread awareness about mental health. She has adopted a village to provide regular electricity to its residents. In 2020, Padukone attended a protest for students who were brutalised during the 2020 JNU attack because of their protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Meanwhile, her ascension as a global luxury brand has been staggering. Late last year, she became the global ambassador for Louis Vuitton (LV) — she’s the brand’s face looking down at Paris, Moscow and Mumbai from mammoth hoardings. She launched her own self-care brand 82°E. Qatar Airways signed her on as their ambassador a few days ago, and she is about to be a presenter at the 95th Academy Awards ceremony this year on March 12, most likely in an LV creation.
Padukone has been 2022’s biggest celebrity brand from India to have made a mark in the global luxury market. In the French luxury fashion house’s 167-year history, an Indian is its global brand ambassador for the first time. In October 2022, Cartier, too, signed Padukone on as its global face. She was the first Indian after a gap of nine years to be on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival. The last one was Vidya Balan in 2013. Louis Vuitton revealed soon after last year’s Cannes Film Festival that Padukone made for seven of LV’s top 10 Instagram posts and generated over 25 per cent of the $20.2 million in media impact value (MIV), according to data analytics and marketing agency Launchmetrics (Media Impact Value is a proprietary algorithm created by Launchmetrics to measure and benchmark the impact of all media placements and mentions across different voices in the fashion, luxury, and beauty industries). The zeitgeist marketing strategy of her own self-care brand 82 degree E, which was also launched last year, largely through Instagram, has centred around the brand’s natural and Ayurvedic ingredients — natural is the new Botox, at least in woke perception or theory.
Padukone has made the right, pertinent noises about being an icon in today’s world. She’s always maintained, is choicest of words, that feminism isn’t about being aggressive, but women having choices in their lives by being feminine, being themselves and being strong-willed. Padukone was among several Bollywood actors who were criticised for posting Instagram messages showing solidarity with the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
In chat shows, her favourite being the Kapil Sharma Show, Padukone is cautious not to dismiss her role as homemaker while also projecting the assured, calm gravitas of a professional luxury brand ambassador. In her marriage with actor Ranveer Singh, she is equally — if not more — the star professional.
Padukone’s family in Bengaluru — her dad Prakash Padukone is part of India’s badminton history, her mother is a travel agent and her sister is a golfer — wears the non-elite, almost middle-class vibe easily, and is a permanent fixture is all of Padukone’s important stage appearances. Receiving a Best Actress award at the Filmfare Awards a few years ago, Padukone read out a sentimental note to her dad, shedding copious tears as she did it. The girl-next-door in her best roles, like in Shoojit Sircar’s Piku (2015), the vulnerable woman stuck in a dead-end relationship and memories of a past trauma in Gehraiyaan (2022) the glamorous double agent in Pathaan and her forthcoming role of a pilot in Fighter alongside Hrithik Roshan, scheduled for release in 2024 — her acting career has been as much of an adventure as it can be in Bollywood’s new shuffle of tent poles in one hand and story-driven content on the other. Industry insiders are overwhelmingly loving as well as critical of Padukone’s persona. “She cries easily, she is too emotional,” Karan Johar has said a couple of times in his chat show. “She is boring, diplomatic and straight-jacketed, not exactly a show-stopper in actual events and parties,” says a co-star, insisting on not being identified.
No other film star in Mumbai is having such a fortuitous moment like Padukone is. And in straddling the values she has grown up with, with developing a malleable actor persona and crafting the imperious charisma of a global luxury icon, she defines the celebrity in ways that’s impossible to box in. It fits right in to the post-millennial way of looking at the world — where choice, authenticity and the millions together have more value than just anodyne millions. The Oscar appearance on Monday is a small achievement compared to what she has steamrolled for herself over 16 years — but it will still invite the eyeballs and the perception meters.
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