Varalaxmi Sarathkumar

Varalaxmi Sarathkumar is an actress and director in the Indian film industry. She has also worked in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada films. Sarathkumar spent the early years of her life in Chennai. She was a student at St. Michael's Academy in the city. She enrolled at Hindustan Arts and Science College in Chennai, from where she completed her graduation in Microbiology. Her further studies took her to the University of Edinburgh in Scotland to pursue her Master's in Business Management. After completing her academic pursuits, Sarathkumar joined Anupam Kher's acting institute in Mumbai, called Actor Prepares, to prepare herself for a career in the film industry. Sarathkumar debuted with Podaa Podi (2012), a romantic comedy directed by Vignesh Shivan and starring Silambarasan Rajendar as the male lead. She essayed the character of a dancer based in London. Sarathkumar bagged the Vijay Award 2012 for Best Debut Actress and the Edison Award (India) 2012 for Best Debut Actress for her performance in the film. She next acted in Madha Gaja Raja, a drama film directed by Sundar C.. But the film didn't get a release due to financial issues. Her second big screen venture was Maanikya (2014), which had Sudeep as her co-star and director. It was an action drama that enjoyed a good run at the theatres and marked her debut in Kannada cinema. In 2016, she appeared in Bala's musical drama Tharai Thappattai (2016). She won the South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA) 2016 for Best Actress (Critics) for her performance. Sarathkumar was next seen in Nithin Renji Panicker's action thriller Kasaba (2016), where she shared screen space with Mammootty. This movie was her debut in Malayalam cinema. Sarathkumar played a small but impressive role opposite Vijay Sethupathi in Vikram Vedha (2017), an action thriller that Gayatri and Pushkar directed. The audience appreciated the film, and it became a huge hit at the box office. Sarathkumar won the Edison Award (India) for Best Character Role - Female in 2017 for her performance. After appearing as a protagonist in a few more films, Sarathkumar took up the challenge of playing an antagonist in Sandakozhi 2 (2018), co-starring Vishal and directed by N. Linguswamy. She continued playing an antagonist on screen in Sarkar (2018). This political action movie was directed by A.R. Murugadoss and starred Joseph Vijay and Keerthy Suresh. For her performance in Sandakozhi 2 (2018) and Sarkar (2018), she won several awards, including the Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards 2018 for Best Villain - Female and the South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA) for Best Actor in a Negative Role in 2019. In 2019, Sarathkumar ventured into Telugu cinema with the action-comedy film Tenali Ramakrishna BA. BL (2019) Tenali Ramakrishna BA.BL (2019). She went on to essay the role of a cop in Danny (2020) Danny (2020), a murder mystery directed by Santhanamoorthy Santhanamoorthy. Over the years, Sarathkumar has etched out her career graph with an impressive repertoire of movies, including Masterpiece (2017) Masterpiece (2017), Maari 2 (2018) Maari 2 (2018), Krack (2021) Krack (2021), Naandhi (2021) Naandhi (2021), Ranam (2021) Ranam (2021), and Michael (2023) Michael (2023). She has also appeared in a few TV shows, such as High Priestess (2019) High Priestess (2019) and Addham (2020) Addham (2020), among others.