Anushka Shetty born on 7 November 1981 as Sweety Shetty) is an Indian film  actress, working in the Telugu and Tamil  film industries.



Anushka Shetty was born in a Tulu speaking family in Mangalore.  She did her schooling and college in Bangalore.  She was also a Yoga Instructor and has trained under yoga guru Bharat Thakur.  She also speaks Telugu, Hindi and Tamil as well.



Shetty made her acting debut in Puri Jagannath's 2005 Telugu film Super alongside Akkineni Nagarjuna. The same year, she acted in another  film Mahanandi, which was an unsuccessful venture. In 2006, she  had four releases, the first being S. S. Rajamouli's Vikramarkudu  opposite Raviteja, in which she  portrayed the character Neeraja Goswami.



The film went on to become very successful and got her much recognition, that eventually made her very popular in Andhra Pradesh.



She next had starred in the film Astram, a  remake of the 1999 Hindi film Sarfarosh,  following which she debuted in the Tamil   film industry, acting in the Sundar  C.-directed action flick Rendu,  sharing screen space with R.  Madhavan. Later that year, she made a special appearance in A. R. Murugadoss' directorial debut in Telugu, Stalin.



Her first release in 2007 was Lakshyam,  after which she starred in Raghava Lawrence's Don opposite Nagarjuna again, of which particularly the  former did very well at the box office.  2008 she had appeared in six films overall; Okka  Magaadu was the first release, in which she played one of three  female leads. Her subsequent releases Swagatam  alongside Jagapati Babu and Bhumika Chawla and Baladur  opposite Ravi Teja again, garnered poor reviews and box office returns.  She next appeared in the film Souryam  pairing with Gopichand again, which became a box office hit.