Karthi

Name: Karthik Sivakumar
Born: May 25, 1977, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Occupation: Film actor

Karthik Sivakumar, best known by his stage name Karthi, is a Tamil film actor. The younger son of actor Sivakumar and younger brother of Surya Sivakumar, he is best known for his critically acclaimed performance as the titular character in his debut film Paruthiveeran in 2007, for which he received the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.

Karthik Career

Karthik graduated from St. Bede’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School in Chennai after which he went on to complete his undergrad from the Crescent Engineering College. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering and got a scholarship to the U.S., where he did his masters. He earned a masters degree in Industrial Engineering from the Binghamton University. He later got a job and was working there for some time. He had also done a couple of basic courses in filmmaking.

After returning to India, he got to meet noted director Mani Ratnam, who initially offered him the role of Arjun (later played by Siddharth) in the film Aayutha Ezhuthu. But Karthi instead joined him as an assistant director for the same film and its Hindi version Yuva, since he always wanted to become a film director and preferred direction to acting. However, he continued to receive several acting offers. When Ameer Sultan approached him to play the lead role in his film Paruthiveeran, Karthi eventually accepted the offer as the film was “so compelling”. The film was critically and commercially very successful, whilst his portrayal as a careless village rowdy was immensely appreciated by critics and earned him several awards, including the Fimfare Best Tamil Actor Award.

In January 2010, his second film, the Selvaraghavan-directed fantasy adventure film Aayirathil Oruvan, got released. The film, like his first film Paruthiveeran was stuck in production, languishing in production hell, for a long time, releasing only three years after his debut film. His character in the film itself was similar and often compared to his own character in his debut film. In April 2010, his next project, the romantic-action film, Paiyaa directed by N. Linguswamy was released, which went on to become hugely successful at the box office. Both its dubbed Telugu versions, named Yuganiki Okkadu and Aawara, proved to be commercially successful in Andra Pradesh, too. He is currently working on Susindran’s second feature film Naan Mahaan Alla and the Tamil remake of the 2006 Telugu film Vikramarkudu.

Filmography

Awards

Filmfare Awards South

• 2007 – Best Tamil Actor for Paruthiveeran

Tamil Nadu State Film Awards

• 2007 – Tamil Nadu State Film Special Prize Award for Best Actor for Paruthiveeran

Vijay Awards

• 2007 – Vijay Award for Best Debut Actor – Paruthiveeran