Vidya Balan reveals her first salary was ₹500; job involved posing beside a tree

Actor Vidya Balan has revealed that the first paycheque she earned was not for a film or show. It was for a promotional campaign which she did for a state tourism department. She also revealed that she received ₹500 as her first salary.

Vidya Balan began her acting career in with Ekta Kapoor's comedy show, Hum Paanch, in 1995. However, she started working much earlier.

Vidya told Zoom in an interview, "My first-ever salary was ₹500 for a state tourism campaign. Four of us - my sister, me, and a cousin and a friend I think went along - and each of us got paid 500 bucks."

The Sherni star added that they had to simply pose next to a tree for the print campaign."We had to just stand beside a tree, and just smile." She went with her mother and sister for her first-ever audition for a TV show, she said. The show, La Bella, never saw the light of the day.

Vidya will soon be seen in Amit Masurkar's Sherni. She essays the lead role of Vidya Vincent, a forest officer. The film is slated to release on Friday, on Amazon Prime Video.

About her character in Sherni, Vidya told PTI in an interview, "She's a person of very few words, smiles rarely but she is a doer. She does what she believes in and she believes in doing it the right way. It's like this saying that you don't need to roar to be a tigress. So my character is a tigress but she does not roar."

Vidya was most recently seen in Shakuntala Devi, which also had a digital-only release last year. She played the titular role of mathematician Shakuntala Devi.