Vidya Balan

Since Silk Smitha was known to be a heavy smoker, Vidya Balan took up heavy chain smoking to prepare for her role as her in her film "The Dirty Picture" (2011). She would smoke around a pack a day, and sometimes before shooting she would smoke up to ten cigarettes consecutively to get in character. She claimed she would get big headaches and sometimes the crew had to assist her because she'd feel sick. Once filming ended, she immediately quit smoking.

Neither of my first two Malayalam films got completed, and I walked out of the third, a Tamil film, because I was not comfortable. I was replaced in another Tamil film with the excuse that I could not act. They made me feel ugly to the point where I was scared to look in the mirror. In retrospect I thank God, and by God's grace today the going is good.