Keerthy Suresh

Keerthy Suresh (born 17 October 1992) is an Indian actress who appears predominantly in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films.

A recipient of various accolades including a National Film Award, three SIIMA Awards and a Filmfare Award South, Keerthy was placed in Forbes India's 30 Under 30 list of 2021.

Keerthy Suresh is the daughter of film producer G. Suresh Kumar and actress Menaka G. Suresh.

Keerthy was born on 17 October 1992 in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India.

Her father G. Suresh Kumar is a filmmaker of Malayali origin while her mother Menaka is an actress of Tamil origin.

She has an elder sister Revathy Suresh.

Until class four, Keerthy did her schooling in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

She then studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram before coming back to Chennai to join the Pearl Academy, where she completed her degree in fashion design.

She also spent time on an exchange program in Scotland for four months, before completing a two-month internship in London.

Despite making a career in acting, she has stated that she was also "seriously considering a career in designing".

Keerthy also knows to play the violin.

She began her career as a child actress in the early 2000s and returned to films after studying fashion design.

In the early 2000s, Keerthy worked as a child actress in a few of her father's productions, such as Pilots (2000), Achaneyanenikkishtam (2001) and Kuberan (2002) and some television serials.

11 years after Kuberan, she made her debut as a lead actress in Priyadarshan's horror film Geethaanjali, in which she had a dual role.

She was still studying during that time and shot for Geethanjali during her semester break.

Reviews on the film and her performance were mixed, with Sify writing that she "does put in some effort but makes only a limited impression in a double role", while Rediff wrote that she "has got a plum role but whether she impresses with her acting prowess is another matter".

She had her first lead role in the 2013 Malayalam film Geethaanjali, for which she won SIIMA Award for Best Female Debut – Malayalam.

In 2014, Keerthy had her next release Ring Master, directed by Rafi of Rafi Mecartin duo, in which she shared screen space with Dileep.

She played a blind girl, which she said was much more challenging than her double role in Geethanjali.

The film was a commercial success, being termed a "super hit" by Sify.

After winning SIIMA Award for Best Female Debut – Tamil for Idhu Enna Maayam (2015), Keerthy went on to star in successful films such as Ring Master (2014), Nenu Sailaja (2016), Rajinimurugan (2016), Remo (2016), Bairavaa (2017), Nenu Local (2017), Mahanati (2018), Sarkar (2018), Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (2018), Penguin (2020), Miss India (2021), Good Luck Sakhi (2022) and Sarkaru Vaari Paata (2022).

Keerthy received the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu nomination for Nenu Sailaja and Mahanati, winning for the latter, which also fetched her the National Film Award for Best Actress.

In 2015, Keerthy accepted her first projects outside of Malayalam and signed on to appear in several Tamil film projects simultaneously.

Her first film release was A. L. Vijay's romantic comedy Idhu Enna Maayam (2015), opposite Vikram Prabhu, though the film did not perform well at the box office.

Her busy schedule throughout 2015 meant that she had to opt out of films which she had already started working on, including Krishna's Maane Thaene Paeye and Deekay's Kavalai Vendam, in order to accommodate bigger projects.

She consequently worked on two films with Sivakarthikeyan in quick succession, Rajinimurugan and Remo, while also playing the lead role in Prabhu Solomon's Thodari, alongside Dhanush.

Her Telugu debut was planned to be ''Ainaa Ishtam Nuvvu.

However, the film is delayed since 2015, with reports of release after September 2020 under a new title Janakitho Nenu.'' Subsequently, the debut was the 2016 film Nenu Sailaja with actor Ram Pothineni.

In January 2017, Keerthy appeared in Bairavaa, opposite actor Vijay and directed by Bharathan.

She also appeared in Tamil film Paambhu Sattai and Telugu film Nenu Local in 2017.

Her first release in 2018, was Agnyaathavaasi in Telugu.

Her first Tamil film in 2018 was Thaanaa Serndha Koottam, in which she played opposite Suriya, for the very first time.

The film opened to positive reviews and became a hit.

She also acted in the Nag Ashwin-directed biographical drama Mahanati where she portrayed the late southern actress Savitri and for which her performance has received critical acclaim and the National Film Award for Best Actress.

Her performance in the film featured in the list of "100 Greatest Performances of the Decade" by Film Companion.

In late 2018, she appeared in three consecutive commercial films, Saamy Square opposite Vikram directed by Hari, Sandakozhi 2 opposite Vishal directed by N. Lingusamy and Sarkar opposite Vijay, directed by AR Murugadoss.

In mid-2019, she made a cameo appearance in the Nagarjuna starrer Manmadhudu 2, which was directed by Rahul Ravindran.

In 2020, she appeared in the thriller film Penguin, which released on Amazon Prime due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in the drama film Miss India which released on Netflix.

In 2021, Keerthy starred in the Telugu language film Rang De opposite Nithiin.

Keerthy's next film Annaatthe starring Rajinikanth directed by Siva opened to negative reviews but was a commercial success.