Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

File photo of Aishwarya walking to the Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai during the early morning hours of Tuesday, May 27. Photo Credit: Maxx Media /

June 20, 2008 (Sawf News) - Aishwarya Rai has the most successful track record amidst Bollywood actresses over the past two years, with four back to back successes in Dhoom 2 (2006), Guru (2007), Jodhaa Akbar (2008) and Sarkar Raj (2008).

She has been part of films by such illustrious directors such as Mani Ratnam, Paul Mayeda Berges, Rituparno Ghosh, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Gurinder Chaddha, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, but critics still say she can't really act, and is not much more than an ornamental element in their films!

Is she plain lucky, or does Aishwarya choose her roles well? She has definitely done interesting and strong roles, roles that any actor worth her mettle would kill to do.

Every time Aishwarya does one of these very interesting roles, we wonder, if another actor could have done it more convincingly.

Lets start with her role in Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar Raj. We'd think she acted better than she normally does - by maybe not acting too much and remaining her own self in most scenes. Ramu probably figured that's the way to make it work with Aishwarya. Just keep things simple, don't ask her to emote too much or show too many expressions.

She still did a very decent job in the film, she was restrained, did not over act, and looked every bit like a tycoon's daughter.

But did she add anything extra? Does any character gain anything extra if it's played by her?

Well, the character becomes beautiful by leaps and bounds, but depth of personality, spontaneity, layers of emotions, sometimes just saying it with a touch or a look in the eye... well, that does not happen when Aishwarya plays a character.