Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature. While running for office Kuehl found she was able to offset some negative stereotypes people had about lesbians thanks to their familiarity with her role as Zelda. She told an interviewer "When people know gay people personally, they tend to feel differently about the whole community. And all of a sudden, here's a person that they knew very well that they found out was lesbian."
Esha Deol
In 2004, Deol made her debut in Tamil cinema by playing a French teacher in Mani Ratnam's political film "Aaytha Ezhuthu" opposite Suriya. She earned critical acclaim for her performance. Sify.com defined her as "surprisingly fresh and sparkling". In order to prepare for her role, Deol learned nuances of the language with Mani Ratnam's assistant R. Kannan. After completing "Aaytha Ezhuthu", Deol started filming the Hindi version of the movie titled "Yuva". In "Yuva", Deol repeated the same role and was paired opposite Ajay Devgn. Prem Panicker of Rediff wrote "Esha Deol is the surprise package among the troika. While hers is the least developed character, she still manages to show flashes of her inherited acting genes." Taran Adarsh wrote "Esha Deol justifies her part, but her role doesn't demand histrionics either." Both movies were released on the same date but could not attain success. "Yuva" had a below average opening and flopped at the box office.
Deol finally got her breakthrough with Yash Raj Films' action film "Dhoom" opposite Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Uday Chopra and Rimi Sen. It was Deol's first action role and she was paired opposite Chopra. The film had a decent opening and became a hit at the box office, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing movie at the box office. Deol did not get much scope in the film but her performance earned her a nomination for the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 6th IIFA Awards. Critics considered Deol and Rimi Sen's performances to be nothing more than beauties and their purpose was defined as providing sex appeal. Surjyakiran Das of Planet Bollywood wrote "It’s most fitting to mention actresses Esha Deol and Rimi Sen while discussing the music and choreography; they seem to turn up in the film only when the heroes feel like crooning a tune and shaking a leg with a loved one. Both actresses do convincing enough work in their roles, but their real purpose is to provide sex appeal." Rajesh Karkera wrote "Esha Deol and Rimii Sen only need to look beautiful in their limited presence in this sweat 'n' leather flick."