Sudeepa

Sudeepa (born Sudeep Sanjeev, 2 September 1971), popularly known as Kichcha Sudeepa, is an Indian actor, director, producer, screenwriter, singer and television presenter who works mainly in Kannada cinema, with further work in Hindi, Telugu and Tamil films. He is one of the highest-paid actors in Kannada cinema and has appeared on Forbes India’s Celebrity 100 list since 2013. Telugu audiences know him best as the villain of S. S. Rajamouli’s Eega (2012). His awards include four Filmfare Awards, two Karnataka State Film Awards and a Nandi Award.

Early life

Sudeepa was born in Shimoga, Karnataka, to Sanjeev Manjappa and Saroja. He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and production engineering from Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering in Bangalore, where he also played under-17 cricket for the college. He then trained at the Roshan Taneja School of Acting in Mumbai, where he says he overcame his shyness.

Breakthrough

After supporting roles in Thayavva (1997) and Prathyartha (1999), he got his first lead role in Sunil Kumar Desai’s romance Sparsha (2000). Huchcha (2001), in which he played a troubled young man, established him as a leading actor and gave him the nickname “Kichcha”. It also began a remarkable run: he won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Kannada three years in a row, for Huchcha, Nandhi and Swathi Muthu, the last a Kannada version of K. Viswanath’s Telugu film Swathi Muthyam.

Director and producer

Sudeepa turned director in 2006 with My Autograph, a remake of the Tamil film Autograph, which ran for 175 days in Karnataka. He moved into production with his second film as director, No 73, Shanthi Nivasa (2007), and in 2009 directed and played a double role in Veera Madakari, a remake of Rajamouli’s Telugu film Vikramarkudu. He later directed Just Maath Maathalli (2010) and Maanikya (2014). He began using the screen name Sudeepa, rather than Sudeep, from Veera Parampare (2010).

Hindi and Telugu films

He made his Hindi debut in Ram Gopal Varma‘s supernatural thriller Phoonk (2008) and also appeared in the Telugu-Hindi bilingual Rakta Charitra. His widest recognition came with Eega, in which he played a rich industrialist whose obsession with a young woman, played by Samantha Ruth Prabhu, leads him to kill the man she loves, who then returns as a housefly. Both the film and his performance were highly acclaimed.

He had a cameo as a Persian arms trader in Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) and was part of the ensemble of Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy (2019), starring Chiranjeevi.

Later Kannada films and television

His later Kannada successes include Kempe Gowda and Vishnuvardhana (both 2011), Ranna (2015), a blockbuster remake of the Telugu film Attarintiki Daredi, Kotigobba 2 (2016), Hebbuli (2017), The Villain (2018) and Pailwaan (2019). He made his Tamil debut proper in Puli (2015) and appeared in the Hindi film Dabangg 3 (2019). Since 2013 he has hosted the reality show Bigg Boss Kannada.

Sources: Wikipedia and Wikidata.