Karthi

Karthik Sivakumar (born 25 May 1977 ), known as Karthi, is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Tamil cinema.

He has won three Filmfare Awards South, an Edison Award, a SIIMA Award and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award.

Karthi was born as Karthik Sivakumar on 25 May 1977 in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India to actor Sivakumar and his wife Lakshmi.

He completed his elementary and secondary school education at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan and St. Bede's Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Chennai.

He gained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Crescent Engineering College, Chennai.

After graduation, he worked as an Engineering consultant in Chennai and considered higher studies abroad.

"I was earning about ₹ 5000 per month and found the work monotonous. That was when I thought, I should do something more", he recalled in an interview.

Karthi got a scholarship for his higher studies in the United States, and enrolled at Binghamton University, New York, where he earned his Master of Science in industrial engineering.

While pursuing his master's degree, he also took elective courses on filmmaking.

During his stay in New York, Karthi worked as a part-time graphic designer.

He then decided to pursue a career in filmmaking; he attended two courses in basic filmmaking at State University of New York.

He stated: "I always knew I wanted to be in films, but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. I loved movies and watched a lot of them. But my father insisted that I get a good education before I joined the film industry".

When Karthi returned to Chennai, he met director Mani Ratnam and got a chance to work as an assistant director in Aayutha Ezhuthu, because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting, though he did appear as an extra in Aayutha Ezhuthu.

He continued to receive acting offers and his father convinced him to take up acting, telling him " ... one can always direct films, but one will not get a chance to act once you grow older".

He accepted his first acting assignment with Priyamani as female lead in April 2005.

When director Ameer approached him to play the titular character in the film Paruthiveeran, he accepted the offer because the film was " ... so compelling".

The filming started in July 2005 and experienced financial difficulties, and was almost abandoned by mid–2006.

In October 2006, Karthi signed his second project under Selvaraghavan's direction, Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam, which was supposed to be a romance film, featuring Sandhya as the female lead.

The younger brother of actor Suriya and son of actor Sivakumar, Karthi initially joined Mani Ratnam as an assistant director and made his acting debut with Paruthiveeran (2007), which earned him several accolades including the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.

It was released in January 2007, to critical acclaim and became commercially successful.

Critics unanimously praised Karthi's portrayal of a careless village ruffian.

Behindwoods said: "He has done away with every trace of sophistication in his body language and even handles the sickle with consummate ease. He looks every inch a hot blooded youngster from some rural part of Tamil Nadu [and] appears seasoned in the romantic scenes ... Uninformed people might not believe that this is the young man's big screen debut. Look out for this guy ... ". Sify said: "It's hard to believe that it is Karthi's debut film as he is just spectacular. His expressions, anger, laughter and anguish are all so realistic that you can feel the fire in him."

Rediff called his performance "excellent", and " ... one of the top performances of 2007".

Karthi received several accolades for his performance, including the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in Tamil.

Karthi's character was a " ... sophisticated upmarket stylish guy ... ". Selvaraghavan abandoned that project and in July 2007, he announced the production of an action-adventure film titled Aayirathil Oruvan, with Karthi in the lead role.

He had agreed to play the lead character in Linguswamy's next film Paiyaa, in September 2007.

Because of the slow progress of Aayirathil Oruvan, Paiyaa was postponed several times.

He later said that he became anxious because he received several film offers, but could not work on them because he needed to maintain the continuity of his looks.

During the filming of Aayirathil Oruvan, producer R.Ravindran complained that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to Paiyaa before finishing his commitments.

Filming began later that year and was expected to be completed by February 2008.

The producers planned to release it in mid-2008, but production was delayed and filming continued until early 2009.

He went on to star in hit films like Paiyaa (2010), Naan Mahaan Alla (2010), Siruthai (2011), Madras (2014), Thozha (2016), Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2017), Kadaikutty Singam (2018), Kaithi (2019), Thambi (2019), Ponniyin Selvan: I (2022), Sardar (2022) and Ponniyin Selvan: II (2023), thus establishing himself as a commercially successful leading actor of Tamil cinema.

Apart from his film career, Karthi has also been involved in social welfare activities, encouraging fans to do likewise through the "Makkal Nala Mandram", a social welfare club that he inaugurated.

Aayirathil Oruvan was released in early 2010.

Karthi's portrayal of a chief coolie was often compared to that in his debut film.

Sify called Karthi's performance " ... a scream.", and said, "Right from his introduction scene till the end, he is lovable and provides humour.", and that he had " ... made a sensational comeback ... ".

In April 2010, Linguswamy's Paiyaa released.

A romantic road-trip film, featuring an album by Yuvan Shankar Raja, it was very successful.

In 2011, he became a cause ambassador to promote awareness of lysosomal storage diseases.

As of 2015, he is the treasurer of the Nadigar Sangam.