Dutta won the annual Gladsrags modelling competition in her native India, thus winning the right to be the first Indian representative at the 1997 Miss Intercontinental pageant, in which she took first place. Later, she was crowned Femina Miss India Universe and Miss Universe in 2000.

At Miss Universe 2000 in Cyprus, Dutta was the clear favourite ahead of fierce competition from Venezuela, Philippines, Colombia and even another former Miss Intercontinental titleholder, Miss Germany. Her finalist interview score, in the last year that such marks were televised, was the highest individual score in any category in the history of the Miss Universe contest, as her perfect interview saw a majority of the judges giving her the maximum 9.99 mark. After her final question, in which Dutta delivered a passionate defence of the Miss Universe contest (and other beauty pageants), she became the second Indian Miss Universe. Dutta has the distinction of being one of a few Miss Universes in the last decade to win by the unanimous vote of the jury (every judge on the panel cast a "1", or first place vote, for her). Dutta even clinched the Oscar dela Renta swimsuit competition with a score of 9.44 beating Venezuela's Claudia Moreno's 9.37 and Canada's Kim Yee's 9.31.

She made her film debut in 2003 with Andaaz, co-starring Akshay Kumar and Priyanka Chopra. She won the Filmfare Best Debut Award for the film.

According to the Miss India-Universe site, Lara Dutta states that she's ethnically Tamil/Punjabi/Nordic.

--Wikipedia