Arjun Sarja

Indian Actor

Arjun Sarja was born in Madhugiri, Karnataka, India on August 15th, 1962 and is the Indian Actor. At the age of 61, Arjun Sarja biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Other Names / Nick Names
Srinivasa Sarja, Arjun, Action King
Date of Birth
August 15, 1962
Nationality
India
Place of Birth
Madhugiri, Karnataka, India
Age
61 years old
Zodiac Sign
Leo
Profession
Actor, Film Director, Singer
Social Media
Arjun Sarja Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 61 years old, Arjun Sarja has this physical status:

Height
173cm
Weight
79kg
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Build
Athletic
Measurements
Not Available
Arjun Sarja Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Hinduism
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Not Available
Arjun Sarja Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Niveditha Arjun
Children
2; including Aishwarya
Dating / Affair
Niveditha Arjun (1988-Present)
Parents
J. C. Ramaswamy aka Shakti Prasad, Lakshmi Devi
Siblings
Kishore Sarja (Older Brother) (Film Director) (d. June 2009), Ammaji Kumar (Sister)
Other Family
Vidyasagar aka Rajesh (Father-in-Law) (Actor), Chiranjeevi Sarja (Nephew) (Actor) (d. June 2020), Meghana Raj (Niece-in-Law) (Actress), Dhruva Sarja (Nephew) (Actor), Prerana Shankar (Niece-in-Law) (Actress), Aparna Sarja (Sister-in-Law), Vijay Kumar (Brother-in-Law)
Arjun Sarja Career

Arjun's father Shakti Prasad, a renowned actor of Kannada films, did not want his son to become an actor and turned down film offers that Arjun began to receive as a teenager. In a surprise move, film producer Rajendra Singh Babu managed to convince Arjun to begin shooting for a feature film for his production house without Shakti Prasad's express permission and consequently, his father agreed to Arjun's career choice. The film Simhada Mari Sainya (1981) featured him as a junior artiste and the director of the film gave him the stage name of Arjun, replacing his original name Ashok Babu. While he began to establish himself Kannada films, he received an offer from actor-producer A. V. M. Rajan and director Rama Narayanan to do a Tamil film Nandri (1984). Simultaneously he was offered a Telugu film, Kodi Ramakrishna's Maa Pallelo Gopaludu (1985) in Telugu too which went on to be a big success, running for a year in three centers.

His career as an actor began to take off in the mid-1980s and he sometimes worked for up to seven shifts in a day to keep up with the films he had committed to do. In Telugu, he established himself as a bankable actor with roles in films such as Naga Devatha (1986) and Manavadostunnadu (1987). In Tamil, his successful films during the period included Shankar Guru (1987), Thaimel Aanai (1988), Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (1989) and Sonthakkaran (1989). By 1990, his films lost box office value and he was out of work in Tamil and Telugu films for almost a year.

In 1992, he subsequently chose to direct his feature film Sevagan. Soon after, Shankar cast him in the lead role in his first film, Gentleman (1993), after much persuasion. Arjun had initially rejected the film without listening to Shankar's narration but the director's persistence prompted him to feature in the film as a vigilante against corruption. The film opened to positive reviews and went on to become a trendsetter in the Tamil film industry, as well as achieving significant box office success, while Arjun went on to win the State Award for Best Actor. His change of fortune at the box office continued and Arjun began to gain ground as a bankable lead star in action films after his films including his patriotic directorial venture Jai Hind (1994) and Karnaa (1995), where he played a dual role, went on to become blockbusters. Kamal Haasan approached Arjun to play a police officer in the action thriller film Kurudhipunal (1995), and the actor accepted the opportunity and agreed to do the film even without hearing the narration. Arjun won positive acclaim for his role, while the film became India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category.

In the late 1990s, after a series of action films, including Sengottai (1996) and Thaayin Manikodi (1998), he teamed up again with Shankar in the political drama film Mudhalvan (1999). Portraying an ambitious TV journalist who receives the opportunity to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for a day, Arjun offered bulk dates for filming the project to Shankar. The film subsequently won positive reviews with Arjun described as having "acquitted himself with aplomb in the challenging role". Arjun received the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor for his role as well as numerous other nominations.

Arjun then briefly experimented in softer roles, portraying critically acclaimed characters of businessman with "shades of grey" in Prabhu Solomon's Kannodu Kanbathellam (1999) and as an energetic civil service officer in Vaanavil (2000). He then featured in Vasanth's romantic drama film Rhythm (2000), where he played a photographer, who eventually falls in love with another widower. Featuring a popular soundtrack and opening to positive reviews, Rhythm also became a commercial success, with a critic noting "Arjun is as polished as ever" and adding "who would have conceived this idea that the "action king" could attempt a soft-natured role of this kind". He carried on with a lighter theme in his next directorial venture, the love story Vedham (2001), while he ventured into Telugu cinema again by appearing in Raja's Hanuman Junction and as a Hindu devotee in Sri Manjunatha (2001).

The image of "action king" made him popular with town and village centre audiences, who appreciated the actor's fight and stunt scenes. He thus actively chose to specialise in action films, often collaborating with directors who specialised in them such as Sundar C, Venkatesh and Selva. In the mid-2000s, he appeared in several action films with the same premise, often portraying a police officer or a local do-gooder. He directed and featured in both the action films Ezhumalai (2002) and Parasuram (2003), while also being involved in Maharajan's Arasatchi (2004). Some of his films, Giri (2004) and Marudhamalai (2007), were box office successes, with several of his projects were not, including Madrasi (2006), Vathiyar (2006) and Durai (2008), in all of which he was the story writer.

Despite not achieving any significant hit films in the 2000s, producers often considered Arjun as a "minimum guarantee" actor and felt his sizable fan following the four Southern States of India would help recover money even through dubbed versions. In a rare experimental film for him in the decade, he portrayed the role of the Hindu deity Hanuman in Krishna Vamsi's devotional film Sri Anjaneyam (2004) and worked on the film without receiving remuneration as a self-confessed worshipper of the deity.

Since the turn of the decade, Arjun has attempted to move away from his "action king" image and accepted to star in films where he would play the antagonist or a supporting role, with the move drawing praise from film critics. In 2011, Arjun accepted the opportunity to act alongside Ajith Kumar in Venkat Prabhu's action thriller Mankatha, with critics praising his performance as a police officer in the blockbuster. The following year he appeared in Kannada film Prasad, for which he won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor. Portraying a middle-class father with a deaf and dumb son, Arjun noted it was a rewarding experience for him to break the monotony of his standard roles and attempt something different, admitting he was moved by the script. The film opened to unanimously positive reviews in March 2012 and then was selected to be screened at the Berlin Film Festival, with critics labelling Arjun's portrayal as a "stunning performance" and his "career-best".

Arjun collaborated with Mani Ratnam with Kadal (2013), in which the actor portrayed a negative role of a smuggler in coastal Tamil Nadu. While the film opened to mixed reviews and became a box office failure, Arjun won rave reviews for his portrayal with Sify.com noting Arjun is "deliciously despicable in his career's most memorable negative role" and The Hindu labelling him as "brilliant". He then won acclaim for his portrayal of a real-life police officer K. Vijay Kumar in the Kannada film Attahasa (2013), the biopic of notorious forest brigand Veerappan, as well as for his role of a paralysed swimming coach in Vasanth's romance film, Moondru Per Moondru Kadal (2013).

His directorial venture, Jai Hind 2 (2014) contained a message about the declining state of the Indian education system. The film became a box office success in Kannada, while the Tamil and Telugu versions did not perform well at the box office. In 2016, he played a realistic police officer in Bharathiraja's critically acclaimed Final Cut of Director (dubbed in Tamil as Bommalattam), where a reviewer felt his "showcase of the soft, subtle yet unrelenting cop was noteworthy". In 2017, he appeared in his 150th film Nibunan, an action thriller where he played a police officer hunting a serial killer. The film won positive reviews, with a critic noting that Arjun "looks stylish and suave as the fit and honest officer, and excels in a couple of action blocks he gets". He then directed a bilingual film titled Prema Baraha (2018) starring his daughter Aishwarya Arjun in the leading role While, the Kannada version performed well, the Tamil version, Sollividava, went unnoticed at the box office. He starred in the Telugu films Lie (2017) and Naa Peru Surya, Naa Illu India (2018). Irumbu Thirai (2018) showed a different Arjun to the audience. Kolaigaran (2019) was also a performance-oriented film. Arjun Sarja's performance as Karna is another highlight of the movie Kurukshetra (2019).

Source

Arjun Sarja Awards
  • 1993 – Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor for Gentleman
  • 1999 – Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor for Mudhalvan
  • 2011 – Silver Screen Sensational Actor Award
  • 2012 – Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor for Prasad
  • 2013 – Vijay Award for Best Villain – Kadal
  • 2014 – Karnataka State Film Award for Second Best Film for Abhimanyu
  • 2019 – Norway Tamil Film Festival Award for Best Supporting Actor – Hero

As fans learn they were left'screaming and howling in disbelief,' a new gangster film takes over the internet

www.dailymail.co.uk, October 19, 2023
At a recent gangster film, cinemagoers were left screaming and howling in disbelief.' On Thursday, theatres were packed out after Leo Leo was announced with the film portrayeding a chocolatier on the run from a gangster pair. The Indian Tamil-language action thriller film has gone down well with Indian audiences, and there is only a limited number of copies in the United Kingdom and the United States.
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