Bollywood actresses have often turned producers, entrepreneurs, social activists or even directors. Prima donna Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has always set herself apart from the other damsels of Indian film industry. Sources say that the actress wants to launch her own signature label of attire. A few years back, there were talks that Ash will be associated as the official brand ambassador of an international fashion line. It is known that many European labels were keen in tying up with her and that she has, so far, been approached by 15 top international designers from Italy, London and New York! However, the actress declined it all. She, by showcasing her saris and gowns at grand international events and with her insistence on minimalistic make-up and accessories in Bollywood, is considered to be quite a trendsetter.

Reports suggest that a few big names from Europe are looking at a partnership with her. However, it is unclear if Ash will go for a joint venture or launch her own fashion line. She is keen to launch her exclusive fashion line that will travel globally. Ash too confirms she has plans. This is something she wanted to do for a decade, but had put her plans on a backburner, and now she wants to set off.

This former Miss World’s gowns and ethnic saris at international events have always been awed, In fact, for the film ‘Robot,’ she designed many of her own clothes that surprised not only director Shankar and fellow actor Rajinikant but also ace fashion designer Manish Malhotra.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who is 37 is in big dilemma. She is planning for motherhood but before she retires from film and concentrates on her new journey, she wants to deliver a mind-blowing and astounding performance. Currently, she has two good projects and she has to make a choice between these two projects. One is Vishal Bharadwaj’s film opposite Hrithik Roshan and the second option is Madhur Bhandarkar’s flick ‘Heroine’.

Aishwarya has heard the narration of Madhur’s ‘Heroine’ and she liked the script but not yet signed the dotted lines. The actress had four releases in 2010 but three of them is rated below average and the Tamil version of ‘Robot’ was a blockbuster. So before she takes a break from film, Ash wants to surprise her audiences with a scintillating act.

Ash and Abhi desperately wants a baby and both are giving a serious thought to extend their family.

The proverb “All’s well That Ends Well” is aptly fitting actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. 2010 was a four release year for the actress, with films like Raavan, Robot, Action Replayy and Guzaarish.
Buzz up!
When looked upon critically at all the four film, Robot was a commercially successful film, while Aishwarya was critically liked by people in Guzaarish. Raavan and Action Replayy, got un-noticed getting a lot disappointment both to the actress and her fans as well.

The actress even managed to bag an award for the performance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish. Hmm!! looks like

She even managed to pick up awards for her performance in this Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. It was a ‘all is well’ year for Ash.

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai had an eventful 2010 which saw four of her films getting a release. Though Aishwarya didn’t get the kind of box office response that she deserved, she starred in 3 magnum opuses if money is anything to go by.
For instance, she starred in the film ‘Robot’ or ‘Endhiran’ that was the most expensive film made in India. Made at a cost of over Rs 150 crore it paired Aishwarya up with the South Indian Demi-God Rajinikanth. And this film did a staggering business at box office and at some parts (like Chennai) the theatre owners had to run early morning (3 am) shows to meet the sky-high demand. The only glitch is that Aishwarya was basically a candy floss in that film which was basically a Rajinikanth bonanza.
Apart from ‘Robot’, Aishwarya Rai starred in another expensive film in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Raavan.’ ‘Raavan’ was the 2nd most expensive film of the year and was inspired from the Hindu epic ‘Ramayan.’ However, despite all the hype and hoopla, this ‘Raavan’ was beheaded by critics and audience.
Aishwarya also starred in the 3rd most expensive film of 2010 in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Guzaarish.’ Made at a budget of over Rs 50 crore, this film starring Hrithik Roshan and Ash was heavily appreciated by the critics. The film, indeed, was poetically beautiful with a poignant storyline and masterly cinematography. But unfortunately, ‘Guzaarish’ was a dud at the box office.

Actress Aishwarya Rai walked away with the special jury award for her performance in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Guzaarish at the Ponds Gold Radiance Zee Cine Awards 2011 held in Singapore.

Aishwarya was honoured on Friday as the best actress (female) jury choice for her outstanding performance in the sensitive and challenging role of Sofia in Guzaarish that also starred Hrithik Roshan as a paraplegic patient.

The actress also performed at the event on hit numbers from Raavan, Action Replayy and Robot.

The award comes right after winning a gong for cinematic excellence for her work for the same film at the recently held Apsara Awards.

Bollywood’s first couple Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan will fly off for a romantic get together this year end. In a statement to the media, the most beautiful actress in B-town says that life has been very hectic in 2010 and she thus wants to start it off on a lazy note in 2011! Though Aishwarya Rai Bachchan does not reveal the destination, she confirms that hubby Abhishek and she have already planned on a long holiday treat for themselves this Christmas and New Year.

When it is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, media speculations refuse to come to an end and it is being said that the Bachchan couple will fly to Europe for their romantic vacation. Looking at it professionally, 2010 has been one of the busiest years for both Aishwarya and Abhishek. While the Bachchan bahu has had back – to –back releases with Raavan, Robot, Action Replayy and Guzaarish, Abhishek too has had his own share of work with Raavan, Paa and Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey. Though hubby was not available for comment, Aishwarya says that she has found the year a little taxing as she is used to working on only one film at a time. However, the films also helped her to flirt with her creative abilities, completely making up for all the hard work suffered all through the year.

Of course, the couple does deserve a holiday. Ash confides that she wants to spend time with Abhi and that will be possible only if they move out of the country and out of work for some time. So is the break deliberately being taken because the couple is planning on family extension? Though both the Bachchans have remained tight-lipped on this matter, many are of the opinion that it is time for the beautiful actress to become a mother and she should start thinking about it seriously! We will know when they are back from their romantic escapade!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan recently turned 37. But age seems to do little to her beauty and effervescence, or to her star power for that matter. The actress has had four releases in 2010 already (Raavan, Raavanan, Robot, Action Replayy) and is gearing up for her final performance before the year ends. Guzaarish releases on November 19 and what we see from the promos she is looking prettier than ever! We chatted with her about the film, which brings her back with Hrithik Roshan and also Sanjay Leela Bhansali. She has worked with both in two movies each and all four films have been hugely successful. Needless to say, expectations from Guzaarish are sky high. Excerpts from an the interview:

This is your third film with Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Does the experience get better?
Working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an experience I cannot put down in words. I have worked with him since early in my career and this is my third film with him. And every film has been memorable. For me, Sanjay cannot be contained in a word. He is a genuine artist he sings, he breaks into a dance, he loves music, he loves moments.

The rapport that the two of you share is visibly warm. But have there been instances where you did not agree during this film?
No. Sanjay and I have a strange connection. I can’t explain it and neither can he! We can communicate to each other even through silence. If I look at Sanjay and both of us would know what he wants from the shot. People would turn and ask how we communicated without speaking! We make strange sounds and we have communicated!

Sounds like you have a ball working with him…

Oh it’s a pleasure working with him. You know some days back he told me that I should work with him in one film every year. I laughed and told him that this is the first time he is saying that to me in years! But then even if we are not working together we are very much connected and a part of each other’s cinema.

It must have been tough for Hrithik to get into the groove with Sanjay and you already so close.
Not at all! He just took a couple of days and then he was there too! This is my third film with Hrithik too and both of us share a great comfort level in working together.

You don’t seem to want to reveal much about the film and your character. Any suspense?
I play a character called Sophiya in the film. She is a caregiver to Ethan, which is Hrithik’s character. Beyond that I would want people to go and see the film or else I would reveal a lot about the film. More so because now a days we get to see so much, through promos and other medium, that we start piecing the story in our head. I think that should not dilute the magic of cinema.

Aishwarya Rai says life has been extremely fast-paced since the day she chose to study science in high school. Now the internationally renowned actor is waiting to take a much-needed break before entering another year full of film projects.

“I keep joking that the pace of my life has been so hectic ever since high school. From Class 12, when I was a science student, till date it has only been a hectic pace and that’s the only pace perhaps my body knows now,” Aishwarya told us.

This year has been particularly hectic for the 36-year-old actor thanks to the release of her films – ‘Raavan’, ‘Robot’, ‘Action Replayy’ and ‘Guzaarish’ in quick succession.

There has been so much jet-setting in and out of the country and travelling within India for the promotion of her films that Aishwarya fell slightly ill. But she is not complaining.

“Come on! I’m okay now. If you think work pressure has affected me, how would you explain Hrithik (Roshan) getting unwell after doing just two films in two years? I just got a day’s fever and I’m all raring to go,” she said.

Aishwarya is now looking forward to some relaxing time.

“It’s almost the end of November and very little of December is left. I had deliberately kept a little part of December off…because since 2008 I have been working continuously.

“Doing five films – ‘Raavan’, ‘Raavanan’, ‘Robot’, ‘Action Replayy’ and ‘Guzaarish’ – has been mammoth. Hrithik keeps joking about my plight and says he did just ‘Guzaarish’ all this while, apart from ‘Kites’. But, yes, I did all that work and also promoted those films. Now I need a break …so a bit of an off in December and then further work next year,” she said.

She is still in talks with filmmakers on her future projects and will be able to announce developments around February next year.

“There have been talks. Producers are working out the scheduling, and then the announcements will be made. I was going to sign up for two films to do this winter, but I declined them because I had commitments with all my directors of the film releases this year. The next lot of offers will materialise post-February and March, and will continue beyond next Christmas,” said Aishwarya.

So she wants to make the most of her holiday period with husband Abhishek Bachchan and all her family members.

“Spending time together itself is quite a holiday for me. It doesn’t matter where we are. We will just be happy to make that time together and that we will make sure we do,” she said.

For now, Aishwarya is just waiting to get the audience reaction to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s just released ‘Guzaarish’, in which she plays Sofia, a nurse to a paraplegic essayed by Hrithik.

“It is my final release of this year…and what a special film to share with our audience! My character Sofia is very special. The kind of capacity, strength, resilience, commitment, empathy and unconditional love that she has for a patient just takes this character to a different realm altogether,” said Aishwarya.

Close to two decades of constant media attention, yet she remains a glittering icon, more symbol than real, defined almost entirely by how she looks.

Aishwarya Rai has an ‘adjective’ problem. She is reportedly the highest paid actress in Indian cinema with her pick of the best roles, banners and directors. Each of her movies in 2010 — Raavan, Robot, the recently released Action Replayy, and soon to premiere Guzaarish — is a five-star production that most actresses can only dream about. This is the face that has launched a thousand magazine articles, and yet not one word in them reveals the woman behind that immaculate visage. Nearly two decades of constant media attention later, she remains a glittering icon, more symbolic than real, defined entirely by how she looks. “I don’t know of anyone who is crazy about Aishwarya,” says filmmaker and critic Paromita Vohra. “[Hers] is a sort of empirical or quantitative success, by virtue of ticking off all the correct surface qualities.” And that perfect ‘surface’ is all that everyone talks about.

Her leading men tend to be oddly laconic in their compliments. Take, for example, Hrithik Roshan, an actor with whom the reigning Bollywood queen shares true celluloid chemistry. Earlier this year, Roshan described the lowly Kangana Ranaut as “an incredible actor” with “no ego” whose “spirit and enthusiasm is infectious”. Yet in a recent interview promoting Guzaarish, Hrithik Roshan was more reserved: “She is one of my favourite co-actors. Ash and I have proven to be a 100 per cent success.” Her Action Replayy co-star, Akshay Kumar, worked just as hard at saying very little. Describing the experience as “interesting”, he added, “it’s also refreshing to work with someone with whom I have not worked with for a while.” Rai’s staunchest admirers tend to damn her with impersonal praise. Directors and dance choreographers rave about her “work ethic”, while fans laud her “dignity” and “poise”. The most her own husband can do is describe her as “a true professional”. At best, she’s a perfect looking, perfectly behaved actress, a model of good behaviour than a flesh-and-blood woman of substance. “Perfection can be its own curse; it may be admirable but not appealing,” says author Sanjay Suri.

Ash’s critics, on the other hand, have no problem in getting specific and personal — accusing her of being all ‘surface’, all the time. She’s been attacked as “fake”, “manipulative”, and “self-obsessed”; a “cosmetic wonder” with an “impeccable hype record”. In comparison, her most vigorous defenders only get personal when they attack her attackers. “Throughout her career, the media has painted Aishwarya as ‘plastic’, an ‘ice-maiden’, ‘wooden’, ‘artificial’ and a ‘non-actress’. This, despite the fact that she has acted in more than 40 films … entered the industry as an outsider, without a godfather. Today her face is more recognised globally than any other Indian actor,” rants author Chetan Bhagat, accusing her critics of “Ash envy”. Not that we are envious, but she is merely successful, a descriptor devoid of any emotive attribute. No one defends Aishwarya as funny, kind, goofy, or sweet (or even temperamental and complicated) — except for Rai herself, who has long fronted a giggly, nice girl persona in all her interviews, perhaps in compensation for this lingering silence.

Yet the actress’s best efforts to convince us otherwise have come to nigh, and for good reason. Even the most unfair criticism is bolstered by a very real lacuna of personality that has come to define Rai’s movie career. Her screen presence seems to lack a certain human essence, a signature quality that a great star brings to each of her roles. Rekha, for example, exudes a tempestuous sensuality, whether playing a courtesan, housewife, or matriarch, as opposed to Madhuri Dixit’s effervescent sex appeal, Kajol’s spunky independence or Rani Mukherjee’s girl-next-door sincerity. This unique quality gives nuance, depth, and texture to each of their roles. It makes us, the viewers, both love the character on the screen and the person who makes her real.

“Movies are powerful because they create a sense of intimacy. In the dark confines of the theatre, the viewer feels connected to the actor, begins to feel like he knows him or her,” says film historian Theodore Bhaskaran. With Rai, no such connection is possible because she emits nothing. In each of her films, she is a blank cipher wreathed in perfect clothes and lighting, without the tell-tale, ragged edges of the human presence behind the mask. As Gertrude Stein said famously of the city of Oakland, “There’s no there there.” A reason why one BBC reviewer notes, “the incandescent beauty and artistry of Aishwarya does indeed keep the audience watching, though not necessarily emotionally engaged”. In the place of self is static which she flails to disguise by over-acting. As she rightly boasts, Rai favours character-driven roles, lavish period productions, and talented directors, but more so in the hope that they may help camouflage that lack of affect. Much of the invective hurled at her acting — plastic, robotic, wooden — is but a futile attempt to explain that puzzling absence.

Whether she’s playing a Rajput princess or holding a press conference, Rai’s public avatar is a gleaming, polished surface that deflects all attempts at intimacy. All we’re left with is her undeniable physical perfection, which however eye-popping does not elicit frail, mortal desire. “She’s someone you’d want to behold, not hold. She is like crystal, the finest piece you might find at Swarovski,” says Suri. “But she is all appearance, and the appearance itself overwhelms her and those who look at her so very much that she cannot be allowed to be anything but her appearance.” Yet it’s that flawless, upmarket ‘appearance’ that reflects the true aspiration of new India: to be beheld in speechless admiration. As long as Rai remains picture-perfect, we’ll never tire of looking at her. She is, after all, the prettiest trophy mounted on the walls of our rising, shining India.

While Robot is breaking all records, the film’s leading lady, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, isn’t around to bask in the glory. She is in Europe with hubby Abhishek fulfilling prior commitments.
“Abhishek and Ash attended the Armani Fashion show in Milan recently. They also went for the party in France that was hosted to celebrate ace fashion designer Roberto Cavalli completing 40 years as a designer,” said a source. It wasn’t all parties though. The celebrity couple shot an advertisement for a soap that they endorse together. But Robot did manage to track them down in London as Abhi and Ash attended a special screening of the film there.