Shraddha Srinath – Lead actress of South Indian hit movies, U Turn, Vikram Vedha, Operation Alamelamma, Jersey and Nerkonda Paarvai

Shraddha Srinath is a promising actress belonging to south Indian cinema. She has worked in all south Indian language films. She is a legal adviser turned actress who marked her screen debut with Malayalam movie, Kohinoor (2015) in a second lead role, which was a box office flop and came to prominence with her second release, U Turn (2016) which marked her Kannada debut too.

After a brief cameo in Kaatru Veliyidai, she did her first full-fledged Tamil movie, Ivan Thanthiran in 2017. She came to prominence playing female lead in Kannada movie, Operation Alamelamma and Tamil thriller, Vikram Vedha both released in 2017. In 2019 she marked her Telugu debut with blockbuster ‘Jersey’ opposite Nani and Bollywood debut through Milan Talkies, playing lead role opposite Ali Fazal.

She is a legal adviser and stage actress turned actress

Shraddha Srinath hails from Karnataka, and was born into a Kannadigan family in Kashmir. Her father is retired army officer who was posted in Kumaon Regiment of Kashmir, and Shraddha was born in Udhampur in year 1990. Her mother is a teacher. Her father has been posted across the country, and hence she grew up in different cities such as Bhopal, Suratgarh, Dharchula, Belgaum, Silchar and Secunderabad. She has always moved from place to place as she grew up as an army kid. She completed her schooling in army schools and later enrolled for law studies at Bangalore Institute of Legal Studies.

She started her professional career as a real estate lawyer with a Bangalore-based real estate company. Then she worked as a real estate legal advisor with a French retailer company. As she had passion of films and acting, she was involved with theatre, and also took modeling assignments along with her corporate job. She quit her job when she got an offer for a Kannada movie, but the project didn’t materialize and she marked her screen debut through Asif Ali starrer Malayalam movie, Kohinoor in 2015. She starred in a hard-hitting photo series on LGBT issues — Coming Out, which went viral, and she was featured as a protagonist aside another woman for the series.

U Turn – in 2016 proved to be a turning point of her acting career

She was signed for the Kannada mystery thriller film, scripted and helmed by Pawan Kumar. She was signed for the lead role of U Turn, where she played an intern at a daily. The movie received overwhelming responses from critics and public, and was later remade to all south Indian languages and Sinhala. Except Malayalam version, all the remakes used the same title, and it was the first Tamil movie to be remade in Sinhala language. It is also being remade in Philippines with the same title. U Turn awarded her with Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Kannada. Urvi was her second Kannada release, which was shown at many international film festivals.

Action thriller – Ivan Thanthiran marked her Tamil debut in 2017

She made an impressive debut in Tamil films through Ivan Thanthiran in 2017. She shared screen space with Gautham Karthik and RJ Balaji in the movie, which received favourable reviews from critics and was a box office hit. She was also seen in a cameo role in Mani Ratnam’s Kaatru Veliyidai, before the release of Ivan Thanthiran. She bagged lead role in one of the biggest hits of the year, Vikram Vedha, and rose to the league of prominent new faces of Tamil cinema. From there on, she received good offers from Tamil, Telugu and Kannada languages, and also received success in many of them. She also shared screen space with Nivin Pauley for Tamil movie, Richie, released the same year.

Operation Alamelamma, Jersey and Nerkonda Paarvai – She hit gold with an array of hits in different languages

She was next seen in Kannada comedy crime thriller, Operation Alamelamma (2017), which was a box office hit. In 2019 she played the lead role in emotional sports drama, Jersey, which marked her successful debut in Telugu cinema. She reprised the lead role of Taapsee Pannu in the Tamil remake of Pink, released in 2019. The movie was titled Nerkonda Paarvai, and she shared screen space with superstar Ajith Kumar. She received favourable reviews from critics.

Her Tamil thriller, K- 13 and Kannada action film, Rustum released same year also turned to be box office hits. Thus year 2019 proved to be a memorable year of Shraddha Srinath’s film journey. However her Telugu romantic film, Jodi was panned by critics. She was paired with Aadi in this movie, written and directed by Vishwanath Aarigella.

An array of movies belonging to different languages is slated to release in 2020. Rudraprayaga, Phantom and Godhra are her upcoming Kannada releases. Krishna And His Leela is her new Telugu film, and Maara and Chakra are her upcoming Tamil releases.

Shraddha Srinath – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. Her mother tongue is Kannada. She was born in Kashmir, and brought up in different cities of India.

2. She participated in the May Queen beauty pageant 2007 held at the RSI Club in Secunderabad and finished among top 5.

3. She started her film journey with a supporting role in a Malayalam movie, which was a flop. However in the following years, she made impressive debut in rest three south Indian language films in a lead role, and all the three films turned to be box office hits. Her Bollywood debut movie was a flop.

4. Though she always dreamt to become an actress and was active in theatre while doing corporate job, she didn’t quit it as earnings from theatre was low. She worked in corporate sector for two years before she called it quit.

5. She has several sleepless nights after quitting her corporate job in law sector.

6. Though she quit her corporate job after she got an offer in a Kannada movie, the movie got shelved. She didn’t return to corporate job and continued with modeling, which bagged her first offer from a Malayalam movie.

7. She specialized in real estate law for her Law studies. She worked with the law Department at Decathlon, Bangalore for a while.

8. She is a self-confessed feminist and a vocal supporter of the #MeToo movement.

9. Her lead role in U –Turn bagged her both Filmfare awards and SIIMA for best actress in a lead role, and many other nominations.

10. Her lead role in Operation Alamelamma bagged her Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor – Kannada, and many other nominations.

11. She won Best Actress (Critics’ choice lead role) award at JFW Movie Awards for her impressive performance in Tamil movie, Nerkonda Paarvai.

12. In 2020 she bagged Best Find of the Year – Female at Zee Cine Awards Telugu Jersey, and also a nomination in best actress category.

13. She didn’t watch Bollywood film, Pink before she worked in its Tamil remake. It is a conscious choice, not to be influenced by Taapsee’s performance.

14. As a stage actress she has worked with theatre groups – Barking Dog productions, Jugaad Co. and Playtonik, and has been a part of the plays – Take it or leave it, Curtain, A Box of Shorts, Vagina Monologues etc.

15. She is a travel freak who loves to explore different cultures and countries. Already she has travelled many foreign countries.