Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran
Shriya Saran at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival in 2012
Native name	श्रिया सरन भटनागर
Born	Shriya Saran Bhatnagar (1982-09-11) 11 September 1982 (age 34) Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
Other names	Shriya, Shreya
Occupation	Actress, model, philanthropist
Years active	2001–present

Shriya Saran (pronounced [ʂrɪjaː sərən] (born as Shriya Saran Bhatnagar on 11 September 1982), also known by the mononym Shriya, is an Indian film actress and model. She has acted in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi language films, as well as a few films in English, Malayalam and Kannada.

Saran was born in Dehradun and spent most of her childhood in Haridwar. In 2001, her dance master gave her the opportunity to appear in Renoo Nathan's debut music video "Thirakti Kyun Hawa", which brought Saran to the attention of many Indian filmmakers. Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she was offered a leading role. Thus, Saran made her film debut in 2001 with the Telugu film Ishtam and had her first commercial success with Santhosham (2002).

She subsequently appeared in several more Telugu films, while making in-roads in the Hindi and Tamil industries. In 2007, Saran starred in Sivaji, the highest-grossing Tamil film at that time. She also gained critical acclaim for her role in the 2007 Bollywood film Awarapan. In 2008, Saran played the lead role in her first English film, the American-Indian co-production The Other End of the Line. Her following projects included popular films such as Kanthaswamy (2009) in Tamil and Pokkiri Raja (2010) in Malayalam — roles that established her as one of the leading actresses in the South Indian film industries. In 2012, she was cast in the British-Canadian film Midnight's Children under the direction of Deepa Mehta, based on Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, for which she received international critical acclaim. She achieved further commercial success by starring in films such as Pavitra (2013) and Chandra (2013). In 2014, Saran starred in the critically acclaimed Telugu film Manam, which she received accolades for her performance.