Meet Salaar star Sriya Reddy, VJ-turned-actress who went on 8-year hiatus at the peak of her career

Sriya Reddy has grabbed the viewers' attention for her small but substantial role in Prabhas' Salaar. The actress, who has worked predominantly in Tamil and Telugu, plays a determined and fierce commander in Prashanth Neel's directorial. She has also entered Neel's film universe, which means that a lot is expected from her in Part 2 of the Salaar franchise. While Sriya earns praise for Salaar, here's a look back at her career so far.

Sriya begins her career onscreen as a VJ

 

Sriya was born into a Telugu family to Bharath Reddy, a former Indian cricketer. She completed her education and trained to be a VJ. Sriya, after winning a VJ hunt show by SS Music, started hosting Connect and Phonetastic. After landing her first VJ gig, she became popular as VJ Sriya and the youth started to notice her.

Sriya bags her maiden film

Reportedly, Sriya's parents were opposed to her doing films. After she was noticed for her VJ gigs, Sriya signed her first movie, Tamil feature Samurai (2002) opposite Vikram. Her maiden Telugu release was Appudappudu (2003), which failed at the box office. After this, she did not work in films for over a year. In 2004, she debuted in the Malayalam film industry with the Mammootty starrer Black. For the film, she went de-glam and earned praise and her popularity rose.

Later that year, she also starred in an English film named 19 Revolutions, directed by Chicago-based Shridhar Reddy.

Sriya Reddy goes on a career-hiatus

In 2005, Sriya had a single release, the Malayalam action film Bharathchandran IPS, which was very successful at the box office. In it, she played the role of an IPS police officer. Post that she featured in Tamil hits Thimiru, Veyil and followed it up with  Priyadarshan's art film Kanchivaram. After completing shooting for the film, Sriya married actor-producer Vikram Krishna in 2008. She left the film industry only to return eight years later with Andaava Kaanom (2018) by director Vadivel.

In 2022, Sriya featured in a prominent role in the Tamil thriller web series Suzhal: The Vortex, followed by Salaar. She will also feature in Pawan Kalyan's OG.