Keerthy Suresh is an actress from the Indian film industry who is mainly seen in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam movies.
Suresh is the daughter of actress
Menaka and producer
G. Suresh Kumar. Producer
Revathy Sureshkumar is her elder sister.
Suresh did her schooling at Kendriya Vidyalaya in Pattom, Thiruvananthapuram. She earned her degree in fashion design from Pearl Academy in Chennai.
Suresh made her debut as a child artiste and went on to act in a few movies produced under her father's banner, Revathy Kalamandhir, and a few television serials. Her first film was
Pilots (2000), followed by
Achaneyanenikkishtam (2001). She next appeared in
Kuberan (2002) before taking a break from movies.
She returned to the world of cinema a decade later. In 2013, she debuted in a lead role in
Priyadarshan's psychological thriller
Geethanjali (2013). As she was yet to complete her studies, she used her semester break to shoot for the movie. Suresh essayed a dual role in this film. She won the South Indian International Movie Award 2014 for Best Female Debut - Malayalam and the Asianet Film Award 2014 for Best New Face of the Year for her performance.
In 2015, she marked her entry into Tamil cinema with the romantic comedy
Idhu Enna Maayam (2015), helmed by
A.L. Vijay. The film failed to create magic at the box office, but Suresh won the South Indian International Movie Award 2016 for Best Female Debut - Tamil and the Edison Award Tamil 2015 for Best Female Rising Star for her acting in the movie.
She went on to appear in Tamil cinema with films like
Rajini Murugan (2015),
Thodari (2016),
Remo (2016),
Bairavaa (2017), and
Paambhu Sattai (2017).
Suresh made her debut in Telugu movies with a romantic comedy,
Nenu Sailaja (2016), co-starring
Ram Pothineni. The film was a critical and commercial success. Her performance won her the Zee Cine Award Telugu 2017 for the Most Popular Actress.
Her next Telugu venture was
Nenu Local (2017). She played the female lead opposite
Nani in this romantic comedy action film, which became a huge hit.
In 2018, she played the titular character in
Mahanati (2018), a biographical movie on the iconic actress
Savitri, directed by
Nag Ashwin. She received wide acclaim for her performance and won several awards, including the National Film Award 2018 for Best Actress and the Filmfare Awards South 2018 for Best Actress - Telugu.
Her performance in
Mahanati (2018) was included in Film Companion's list of 100 Greatest Performances of the Decade. (Mahanati appears at No. 85 on the list).
In the same year, she appeared in
A.R. Murugadoss' political action movie
Sarkar (2018), which was a blockbuster. She also starred in several other commercial ventures in 2018, such as
Sandakozhi 2 (2018),
Thaanaa Serndha Koottam (2018), and
Saamy Square (2018).
She essayed the lead role in the mystery thriller
Penguin (2020), which was released on Amazon Prime. She also portrayed the role of a lawyer in
Vaashi (2022), a courtroom drama film directed by
Vishnu Raghav.