Eye of the beholder

We know Aditi Rao Hydariis beautiful. She knows it too. But lately, all the chatter has shifted to her fabulous work on screen. It's about time. It feels great. After all, she's only been preparing for it her whole life

- Karishma Kuenzang

In 2024, Aditi Rao Hydari and stylist Santu Misra were at Cannes and were trying to get a table at a packed-out restaurant. "The concierge looked at me and said, 'You MUST have a table'," she recalls. "I'd rather believe that people are doing it because they are genuinely nice, and not because of how I look."

It's exactly the kind of thing you'd expect a pretty person to say. Rao Hydari has amber eyes, sharp, delicate features and perfect skin.

She's been the global face for beauty brand L'Oreal; modelled for Sabyasachi, Tarun Tahiliani and Gaurav Gupta; and most recently, she was part of the advertising campaign for Indriya, the jewellery label launched by Aditya Birla Group.

But getting taken seriously in cinema has taken a while. Critics and audiences have loved her as Bibbojaan, the courtesan and freedom fighter, on the Netflix show Heeramandi, which premiered in May. Her sensual walk in one scene has a life of its own online. Plus, she was in two blockbuster series last year, playing another fiery courtesan Anarkali in Taj: Divided by Blood (Zee) and movie star Sumitra Kumari in Jubilee (Prime Video).

It seems that finally, 15 years after she made her Hindi film debut in Delhi 6 (2009), the stars are starting to align. She doesn't mind the wait.

"When you do things yourself, grow and learn by yourself, you feel a certain ownership of the journey," she says.

It also means that success hasn't come on the back of her looks. It's the kind of flex that would make both Rao Hydari and her mother, classical singer Vidya Rao, proud.

On beauty

She knew her mother was a beautiful woman.

"Friends would tell me that my mother looked like Audrey Hepburn," recalls Rao Hydari. She watched Roman Holiday at age 12. She agreed.

"Everyone used to call me Little Vidya when I was growing up," Rao Hydari says.