Sherawat set the Bollywood industry on fire with her role in 2004’s biggest box office hit, Murder. She’s set to make her Hollywood-backed debut alongside Slumdog Millionaire’s Irrfan Khan in this fall’s Hisss, and will soon begin production on her new film, in which she plays a character inspired in part by San Francisco Attorney General Kamala Harris, called “the female Barack Obama” by David Letterman, one of the Oprah Winfrey Show’s “Most Powerful Women in America,” and one of the New York Times’ “most likely women to become the first female President of the United States.”

She was recently invited to Twitter headquarters, where she was recognized for bringing awareness to the social networking site in India, and was featured in a Huffington Post article as being among the Bollywood elite who actively use the site to connect with fans and the reason behind why Twitter’s popularity has skyrocketed in India.

Sherawat’s a double threat, with both beauty and brains: She was voted one of Asia’s 100 most beautiful people by the Hong Kong-based magazine Cover, and has repeatedly made the “Most Desirable” polls on AskMen.com and in Maxim. In addition to her work on the big screen, Sherawat, who holds a degree in philosophy, is an advocate for women’s issues, the environment and nutrition.