Who does not love to be an actress! The essential Indian actress is ethical, virtuous and showcases the Indian values. Looking back at the history of Indian cinema it must be noted that the very first film, Alam Ara, had no Indian actress. The female lead was played by a male actor. However with time change is imminent. And thus the Indian cinema has evolved too. The coming of the actresses was quite important for the film industry.

The Indian films once represented the Indian actress merely as a love interest of the leading man. Women centric films were rare in Indian cinema. However exceptions in the form of Sujata, Bandini or Devi were there. Actresses like Nutan, Meena Kumari, Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen, Suchitra Sen, Supriya Pathak, Deepti Naval, Shabana Azmi, Jaya Bachchan, Smita Patil, Rekha and others strongly represented women on screen. The roles of these actresses gave a new dimension to the role of the Indian actress in cinema. At a later stage Indian actresses like Vijayashanti, Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi stepped in and played central women characters.

The glamour quotient, however, remained an indispensable part of the Indian actress. She was exquisitely beautiful and nearly perfect. However the contemporary films present women who are fallible yet they fight to make both ends meet. With time values and principles have changed and that is quite apparent in the roles that an Indian actress enacts.

Such changes are easily visible in the characters of the Bollywood actresses, Tamil actresses, Kannada actresses, Telugu actresses, Assamese actresses, Bengali actresses and others.