Born as Rachna AKA Gudiya, Bhumika Chawla started working in the Indian film industry after moving to Mumbai from New Delhi in 1997. She started working in ad films, music videos and TV serials. She started her film career with the Telugu film Yuvakudu. After this came the much successful Kushi. Following this she acted in several other movies in Telugu and Tamil.

She made her Bollywood debut with Tere Naam (2003) pairing with Salman Khan. The film won her much appreciation, recognition and awards. The movie turned out to be one of the biggest box office grossers of the year. She was even nominated for the Filmfare Best Actress Award and won the Best Debut trophy from the Zee Cinema Awards. After this she appeared in 2008 with the Punjabi film Yaariyan starring Gurdas Mann. In 2009, she will be seen in Class and Maa.