Aishwarya Rai Bachchan or Aishwarya Bachchan (Birthname: Aishwarya Rai; born November 1, 1973) is an internationally renowned Indian actress. Before starting her acting career, she worked as a model, and gained fame after winning the Miss World contest in 1994.

Often acclaimed as the most beautiful woman in the world, Rai made her movie debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, Iruvar (1997). She had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie Jeans (1998), and came to the attention of Bollywood in the Hindi movie, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance in the film won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award, and she successfully performed in Bhansali's next project, Devdas (2002), for which she won her second Best Actress Award at the Filmfare. Since then, she has acted in over forty movies in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and English, including the international productions, Bride & Prejudice (2003), Mistress of Spices (2006) and The Last Legion (2007) in English.