Karthi

Karthik Sivakumar (born 25 May 1977), credited as Karthi, is an Indian actor who works in Tamil cinema. He is the son of veteran actor Sivakumar, and began his career as an assistant director in his elder brother Suriya's film Aayutha Ezhuthu (2004). He debuted as a lead actor with Paruthiveeran (2007). Karthi is a recipient of three Filmfare Awards South and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award.

After a three-year hiatus from acting, he then returned to star in films such as Aayirathil Orvuan, Paiyaa and Naan Mahaan Alla, all three of which were released in 2010. He then continued to star in films such as Siruthai (2011), Saguni (2012), Alex Pandian (2013), All In All Azhagu Raja (2013) and Biriyani (2013).

Karthi has starred in several well-known Indian films, portraying an impulsive and short-tempered working-class man in Madras (2014), a paroled convict-turned-caretaker in bilingual comedy-drama film Oopiri / Thozha, and in dual roles as the titular protagonist and the antagonist in Kaashmora (both in 2016). He starred as the titular character in Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru (2017), for which he received a Filmfare Awards South award, as Dilli in Kaithi (2019), as Vallavaraiyan Vandiyadevan in Ponniyin Selvan: I (2022) and its sequel (2023), and also starred in the spy-thriller film Sardar (2022).

Karthi was born as Karthik Sivakumar on 25 May 1977 in Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu, India to actor Sivakumar and his wife Lakshmi. He has two siblings; an elder brother, Suriya, who was already an established actor at the time of Karthi's film debut, and a younger sister, Brindha, who is a singer in Tamil cinema. Tamil film actress Jyothika is Karthi's sister-in-law.

He completed his elementary and secondary school education at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan and St. Bede's Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Chennai. He gained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Crescent Engineering College, Chennai. After graduation, he worked as an Engineering consultant in Chennai and considered higher studies abroad. "I was earning about ₹ 5000 per month and found the work monotonous. That was when I thought, I should do something more", he recalled in an interview. Karthi got a scholarship for his higher studies in the United States, and enrolled at Binghamton University, New York, where he earned his Master of Science in industrial engineering. While pursuing his master's degree, he also took elective courses on filmmaking. During his stay in New York, Karthi worked as a part-time graphic designer. He then decided to pursue a career in filmmaking; he attended two courses in basic filmmaking at State University of New York. He stated: "I always knew I wanted to be in films, but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. I loved movies and watched a lot of them. But my father insisted that I get a good education before I joined the film industry".

When Karthi returned to Chennai, he met director Mani Ratnam and got a chance to work as an assistant director in Aayutha Ezhuthu, because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting, though he did appear as an extra in Aayutha Ezhuthu.^{[citation needed]} He continued to receive acting offers and his father convinced him to take up acting, telling him " ... one can always direct films, but one will not get a chance to act once you grow older". He accepted his first acting assignment with Priyamani as female lead in April 2005.^{[citation needed]} When director Ameer approached him to play the titular character in the film Paruthiveeran, he accepted the offer because the film was " ... so compelling". The filming started in July 2005 and experienced financial difficulties,^{[citation needed]} and was almost abandoned by mid–2006.^{[citation needed]} It was released in January 2007, to critical acclaim and became commercially successful.

Critics unanimously praised Karthi's portrayal of a careless village ruffian. Sify said: "It's hard to believe that it is Karthi's debut film as he is just spectacular. His expressions, anger, laughter and anguish are all so realistic that you can feel the fire in him." Rediff called his performance "excellent", and " ... one of the top performances of 2007". Karthi received several accolades for his performance, including the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in Tamil.

In October 2006, Karthi signed his second project under Selvaraghavan's direction, Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam, which was supposed to be a romance film, featuring Sandhya as the female lead. Karthi's character was a " ... sophisticated upmarket stylish guy ... ". Selvaraghavan abandoned that project and in July 2007, he announced the production of an action-adventure film titled Aayirathil Oruvan, with Karthi in the lead role. Filming began later that year and was expected to be completed by February 2008. The producers planned to release it in mid-2008, but production was delayed and filming continued until early 2009. He had agreed to play the lead character in Linguswamy's next film Paiyaa, in September 2007.^{[citation needed]} Because of the slow progress of Aayirathil Oruvan, Paiyaa was postponed several times. He later said that he became anxious because he received several film offers, but could not work on them because he needed to maintain the continuity of his looks. During the filming of Aayirathil Oruvan, producer R.Ravindran complained that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to Paiyaa before finishing his commitments.