Isha Koppikar

Isha Koppikar is an Indian actress, politician and model who has mainly acted in Hindi films.

She has also featured in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, and Marathi films.

She started her career in South Indian languages films in the second half of the 1990s and focused on Bollywood films in the early 2000s.

Koppikar was born in Mahim, Bombay (now Mumbai) in a Konkani family.

She has one younger brother.

She graduated in Life Sciences at Ramnarain Ruia College in Mumbai.

While at college she appeared in a photoshoot for Indian photographer Gautam Rajadhyaksha.

The shoot led to work in advertising as a model, notably for L'Oréal, Rexona, Camay, Tips & Toes and Coca-Cola.

Koppikar competed in the 1995 Miss India contest, winning the Miss Talent Crown.

Her modelling work gave her an introduction to the film industry and to her first film appearance in the Telugu movie W/o V. Vara Prasad in 1997.

Her career must therefore be said to have begun with the 1997 Telugu film W/o V. Vara Prasad, in which she appeared in a song with actor Vineeth.

Her first movie in Tamil was Kadhal Kavidhai costarring Prashanth for which she won the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award.

The 1998 Hindi film Ek Tha Dil Ek Thi Dhadkan, directed by Shahrukh Sultan, is often stated to be Koppikar's first film, but there is no evidence the project was ever released.

Her next Tamil movie was En Swasa Kaatre (1998) opposite Arvind Swamy, directed by K. S. Ravi, with music by A. R. Rahman followed by a cameo appearance in Praveen Gandhi's Jodi starring Prashanth and Simran.

In 1999, Koppikar starred in the gangland movie Nenjinile starring Vijay and directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar.

By 2000, Koppikar's sights were on Bollywood, but this did not stop her from appearing in three Kannada films with the ruling Sandalwood stars of the time: Hoo Anthiya Uhoo Anthiya with Ramesh, O Nanna Nalle with Ravichandran and Surya Vamsha opposite Vishnuvardhan, all box office successes.

In 2000, Koppikar started her Bollywood career with a small role alongside Karisma Kapoor and Hrithik Roshan in Khalid Mohamed's Fiza and an item number appearance in Prakash Jha's Rahul.

After a brief appearance in Bollywood's Fiza and Rahul, she came back to the south in 2001 for Sundar C's Tamil project Kaathal Solla Vanthen the movie never took off.

Koppikar's last two films down South were Telugu comedy Prematho Raa starring Venkatesh and Simran, and directed by Uday Shankar, and Narasimha starring Vijayakanth.

In 2001 she made her full-fledged Bollywood debut with Rajiv Rai's Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat, starring Arjun Rampal and Sunil Shetty where she was paired with Shetty.

Her next release was K. Raghavendra Rao's urban comedy Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiyaa opposite Govinda.

In 2002, Koppikar appeared in an item number in Ram Gopal Verma's underworld movie Company starring Ajay Devgan, Vivek Oberoi and Manisha Koirala.

The chartbusting item number choreographed by Ganesh Hegde earned her title of Khallas Girl.

Another notable item number Ishq Samundar, in Sanjay Gupta's Reservoir Dogs remake Kaante starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty, raised her profile higher.

She also won the Stardust Award for the Most Exciting New Face for her Khallas number.

Koppikar acted in five films in 2003.

In Dil Ka Rishta, she starred opposite Arjun Rampal and Aishwarya Rai.

Prawaal Raman's portmanteau film Darna Mana Hai saw her opposite Aftab Shivdasani.

Chandraprakash Dwivedi cast her alongside Urmila Matondkar and Manoj Bajpai in the critically acclaimed Pinjar which went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration.

A brief role in J. P. Dutta's war movie LOC Kargil paired her opposite Sunil Shetty again.

And in Harry Baweja's Qayamat: City Under Threat, she played one of three terrorists fighting off co-stars Ajay Devgan and Sunil Shetty; a role which earned her a Filmfare nomination in the Best Villain category.

She had six releases in 2004.

Both Mani Shankar's science fantasy Rudraksh and Kundan Shah's madcap comedy Ek Se Bhadkhar Ek teamed her with Sunil Shetty.

In Krishna Cottage, she was cast opposite Sohail Khan for a creepy ghost story.

Inteqam, directed by Pankaj Parashar and co-starring Manoj Bajpai, saw her revive the role played by Sharon Stone in the original Hollywood version: Basic Instinct.

She made a cameo appearance in Kunal Kohli's Hum Tum with Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji.

And played the leading role in Karan Razdan's – Girlfriend with Amrita Arora and Aashish Chaudhary.

The controversial film depicting a lesbian relationship provoked a wide range of public protests.

In 2005, she had four releases.

Sangeeth Sivan's bawdy comedy Kyaa Kool Hai Hum with Anupam Kher, Ritesh Deshmukh and Tusshar Kapoor saw her getting nominated in three separate award ceremonies (IIFA, Zee Cine Award and Star Screen Awards) for best actor in a comedy role.