Priyamani

Who is Priyamani?

Priya Vasudev Mani Iyer, better known by her stage name Priyamani, is an Indian film actress and model, who appears mainly in South Indian cinema. She made her film debut in 2003 with the Telugu film Evare Atagaadu while also making inroads into Tamil Cinema and Malayalam Cinema during 2004. In 2007, she gained widespread recognition for her role as a village girl in the Tamil film Paruthiveeran, receiving the National Film Award for Best Actress as well as a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil for her performance. During the same year, she achieved commercial success in Telugu Cinema with Yamadonga.

In 2008, Priyamani received further critical acclaim for her role as Malavika in the Malayalam film Thirakkatha for which she received her second Best Actress prize at the Filmfare Awards South. The following year, she made her Kannada film debut in Raam opposite super star Puneet Rajkumar which proved to be a commercial and critical success. Although her Hindi film debut through Mani Ratnam's bilingual in Tamil and Hindi, titled Raavan and Raavanan respectively, failed to propel her Bollywood career forward, her subsequent films, particularly in Kannada cinema, established her as a leading contemporary actress in South Indian cinema. In 2012, she received her third Filmfare Award as the 'Best Actor Female-Kannada' for her portrayal of conjoined twins in the Kannada-Tamil-Telugu multilingual film Chaarulatha produced by the very popular legendary Kannada actor-director Dwarakish.