Arjun Sarja

Srinivasa Sarja, better known by his stage name Arjun Sarja or simply Arjun, is an Indian actor, producer, and director who works predominantly in Tamil cinema in addition to Telugu and Kannada films and a few Malayalam and Hindi films.

Referred to by the media and his fans as "Action King" for his roles in action films, Arjun has acted in more than 160 films, most of them being lead roles.

He is one of few South Indian actors to attract fan following from multiple states of India.

He has directed 12 films and also produced and distributed a number of films.

Sarja, inspired by Bruce Lee's 1973 film Enter the Dragon, began training Karate at the age of 16 and now holds a black belt.

His career as an actor began to take off in the mid-1980s and he sometimes worked for up to seven shifts in a day to keep up with the films he had committed to do.

The film Simhada Mari Sainya (1981) featured him as a junior artiste and the director of the film gave him the stage name of Arjun, replacing his original name Ashok Babu.

While he began to establish himself Kannada films, he received an offer from actor-producer A. V. M. Rajan and director Rama Narayanan to do a Tamil film Nandri (1984).

Simultaneously he was offered a Telugu film, Kodi Ramakrishna's Maa Pallelo Gopaludu (1985) in Telugu too which went on to be a big success, running for a year in three centers.

In Telugu, he established himself as a bankable actor with roles in films such as Naga Devatha (1986) and Manavadostunnadu (1987).

In Tamil, his successful films during the period included Shankar Guru (1987), Thaimel Aanai (1988), Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (1989) and Sonthakkaran (1989).

He is married to Niveditha Arjun in 1988, a former actress who has appeared in the 1986 Kannada film Ratha Sapthami under the stage name of Asha Rani.

Kannada actor Rajesh is his father-in-law.

Sarja has two daughters, Aishwarya and Anjana.

By 1990, his films lost box office value and he was out of work in Tamil and Telugu films for almost a year.

In 1992, he subsequently chose to direct his feature film Sevagan.

In 1993, he starred in S. Shankar's blockbuster Gentleman which opened to positive reviews, while Arjun went on to win the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor.

Soon after, Shankar cast him in the lead role in his first film, Gentleman (1993), after much persuasion.

Arjun had initially rejected the film without listening to Shankar's narration but the director's persistence prompted him to feature in the film as a vigilante against corruption.

The film opened to positive reviews and went on to become a trendsetter in the Tamil film industry, as well as achieving significant box office success, while Arjun went on to win the State Award for Best Actor.

During this time, he starred in hits such as Jai Hind (1994), Karnaa (1995), and the action thriller film Kurudhipunal (1995), for which Arjun won acclaim for his role while the film became India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

In 1999, he starred in the political action-thriller, Mudhalvan, which earned him for his role as well as numerous other nominations.

He was then featured in Vasanth's romantic drama film Rhythm, where he played a photographer, who eventually falls in love with a widow.

Featuring a popular soundtrack and opening to positive reviews, Rhythm also became a commercial success.

Arjun made appearances in the Kannada film Sri Manjunatha (2001) and the Telugu film Hanuman Junction (2001).

He won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor for his work in the film.

Aishwarya Arjun made her acting debut in 2013.

Arjun's father Shakti Prasad, a renowned actor of Kannada films, did not want his son to become an actor and turned down film offers that Arjun began to receive as a teenager.

In a surprise move, film producer Rajendra Singh Babu managed to convince Arjun to begin shooting for a feature film for his production house without Shakti Prasad's express permission and consequently, his father agreed to Arjun's career choice.

The multilingual film Abhimanyu (2014) won the Karnataka State Film Award for Second Best Film.

Sarja was born to Kannada actor Shakti Prasad, and his mother was Lakshmi, an art teacher.

He had one elder brother Kishore Sarja, who directed Kannada films.

Arjun had always thought and dreamt of becoming a police officer but his fate took him into an entirely different direction.

Arjun is an ardent devotee of Hanuman.

He is building the Hanuman temple at the outskirts of Chennai.

A 35-foot statue of the Lord Anjaneya was sculpted exclusively for the temple and the statue of the Hanuman is in a sitting posture and weighs around 140 tonnes.

The sitting posture of the Hanuman statue is first of its kind in India.

The single-stone statue is in 35 feet high and 12 feet wide and 7 feet thick.

His nephews Chiranjeevi Sarja and Dhruva Sarja have acted in Kannada movies.

Another nephew of Arjun, Bharat Sarja, made his acting debut in 2014.