Sriya Reddy

Sriya Reddy (born 28 November 1983) is an Indian actress, television presenter and a video jockey who primarily appears in Tamil and Telugu films. Born to former Indian test cricketer Bharath Reddy, Sriya worked as successful video jockey at SS Music before pursuing an acting career as well. Following her debut in Samurai (2002), she appeared in nearly a dozen Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films, with Black (2004), Thimiru (2006) and Kanchivaram (2008) being her best known productions. Early life Sriya was born into a Telugu family to Bharath Reddy, an Indian cricketer. She did her schooling at Good Shepherd School and went on to study at Ethiraj College Chennai. When she was a child, cricketers Ravi Shastri and Sandeep Patil visited their home and complimented her good voice. During school, she received modelling offers, but had to decline them, since her father wanted her to finish her education first. When she was offered an audition for the leading music channel Southern Spice Music, she was able to convince her father that she would both study and be a VJ. Career Sriya, after winning the VJ hunt by SS Music, started hosting shows such as Connect and Phonetastic. However, she cited that she needed five auditions before being selected. She became highly popular as 'VJ Sriya' on SS music, becoming familiar among young viewers. She then accepted her first acting assignment for a Telugu film, in spite of her parents' aversion to her acting in films, citing that she signed the contract when her father was asleep. Her debut release, however, happened to be Balaji Sakthivel's directorial debut Samurai, in which she played a supporting character alongside Vikram. Her maiden Telugu release Appudappudu failed at the box office, following which she did not work in films for over a year. Her next release was in 2004, when she debuted in Malayalam with the Mammootty-starrer Black. She played the role of a young Tamil village woman who comes to town in search of her missing husband, carrying a "thoroughly de-glamourised look" in the film, totally contrary to her real-life look, with director Renjith, on his decision to cast her for the role, citing that she had a "very Dravidian face". Sriya considered this film as her highest point of career for having acted alongside Malayalam actor Mammootty.