Do we like Vidya Balan?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decent record, no harmful words found, real charity and kindness; the score stops short of 9 because the record on trans issues and the planet is thin.
Vidya Balan was raised in Mumbai and began on TV in the 1995 sitcom Hum Paanch. Her feature debut was the Bengali film Bhalo Theko in 2003, and Bollywood noticed her with Parineeta in 2005.
The big turn was The Dirty Picture in 2011, which won her the National Film Award for Best Actress. She followed it with Kahaani, then Shakuntala Devi, Sherni and Neeyat. She's built a career playing strong, complicated women rather than decoration.
The nearest thing to a scandal is a story about her, not by her. In May 2025 a Congress spokesperson alleged that a Madhya Pradesh minister invited her to dinner during the 2020 Sherni shoot, and that shoot permission was pulled after she declined. The minister, Vijay Shah, rejected the allegation. Nothing in the sources has her saying anything about it.
On the harm test, we found nothing nasty from her. In 2024 she praised Mammootty's gay role in Kaathal: The Core and said she didn't think any of our Hindi actors could do “a film like Kaathal”. She has also told people to stop mocking others over size and colour. We found nothing from her on trans issues or the climate, so that's a gap in the record.
She's also been open about the body-shaming she copped over her weight. In a video she said “Don't make jokes on someone's size, colour.” That's a woman using her platform for other people, not just herself.
The good stuff is practical. In 2012 she signed on as the government's sanitation campaign ambassador, promoting toilet construction and use. In 2016 she reportedly asked that her Rs 5 lakh award money go to the Swades Foundation to build rural toilets.