Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra (born 17 December 1984) is an Indian actor, director and screenwriter who primarily works in Telugu-language films. Sesh was born in Hyderabad and was raised in Berkeley, California. He made his film debut as a lead actor and director in 2010 with Karma. Following antagonistic roles in Panjaa (2011), Balupu (2013), and Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), he established himself as a versatile actor with commercial successes such as Run Raja Run (2014), Ladies & Gentlemen (2015), Dongaata (2015), Kshanam (2016), Ami Thumi (2017), Goodachari (2018), Evaru (2019), and Major (2022), the latter being his highest grosser.[2]

Adivi Sesh
Sesh in 2022
Born	Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra (1984-12-17) 17 December 1984 (age 37)[1] Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (now Telangana), India
Alma mater	San Francisco State University
Occupation	Actor director screenwriter
Years active	2002–present
Relatives	Sai Kiran Adivi (cousin)

His film Kshanam was a commercial success and it went on to get nominated for numerous awards. Sesh won the IIFA Award for the Best Screenplay and the Nandi Award for the Best Screenplay Writer for the movie Kshanam.

Early life

Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra was born 17 December 1985 in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh (now in Telangana), India.[1][3] He was raised in Berkeley, California, United States, where he attended Berkeley High School and did his undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University.[1][3] Sesh has a sister, who is pursuing medicine in Ireland as of 2020.[4] His cousin, Sai Kiran Adivi, is a film director.[5] Sesh's grandfather Adivi Gangaraju was a freedom fighter. Sesh is a vegetarian.[6]

Career

Sesh debuted as an actor in the film Sontham (2002) in a small guest appearance.[1] He debuted as a director and writer in the 2010 film Karma, which also starred Jade Tailor and Sher Ali.[7] Sesh's portrayal of Dev, a person who can fore-see events mere seconds before they happen, was well appreciated. Rediff praised his performance stating "As far as acting goes, Sesh Adivi does a good job. With an 'angelic' face he is an apt choice to play enigmatic Dev. His scripting skills also deserve mention. He may have chosen an unconventional path and a novel theme but he has tried to infuse something new in Telugu cinema."[8]

In 2011, Sesh appeared in Vishnuvardhan's Panjaa, which starred Pawan Kalyan, Sarah Jane Dias, Anjali Lavania and Jackie Shroff in the lead. In this film, Sesh portrayed the role of Munna, an NRI who is a wealthy spoiled brat and a very dangerous person to those around him. This also marked his debut as a villain.[9] His performance was highly appreciated by critics. Rediff said of his performance, "Sesh Adivi is worth watching for his 'maniacal' performance which is just the opposite of what he did in Karma, his directorial and acting debut."[10] CineGoer.com also praised his performance, saying "Sesh's Karma changes for the good with this film and he is quite a revelation."[11] After this he did movie called Balupu as villain. Then he did movie called Kiss in his direction, the only disaster in his career until now. He did supporting role in Run Raja Run after this he started doing leads again in Ladies & Gentlemen and Dongaata in 2015 then he appeared in S.S. Rajamouli's epic drama Baahubali: The Beginning.[12]

In 2016 Sesh appeared in Kshanam story and screen play written by him along with Ravikanth Perepu director of the film. With this film, Sesh got the attention from the audience and industry. After Kshanam he rejected more than 50 scripts that offered him the lead role.[13][14] Then he appeared as cameo in Size Zero and Oopiri. He appeared in Ami Thumi comedy film, which was directed by Mohanakrishna Indraganti. His next film, Goodachari, an action thriller released on 3 August 2018 to positive reviews and became a super hit and closed on 6 September at the box office, 33 days after release.[15] The film was written by him and directed by Sashi Kiran Tikka.[16] He next had a special appearance in Oh! Baby, starring Samantha Akkineni. His next film was the 2019 suspense thriller Evaru, written and directed by Venkat Ramji, which was released on 15 August, open to positive reviews, and went on to become a hit film, running for more than 4 weeks in the theatres.

His film Major, a biopic about the life of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan released on June 3, 2022, and became the biggest success of his career, also making him a PAN India star. In April 2020, Sesh confirmed writing script for Goodachari 2, a sequel to his 2018 spy thriller film Goodachari.[17] Sesh is also signed to feature in HIT 2: The Second Case, a sequel to the film HIT: The First Case (2020).[18]

Filmography

As an actor

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Film	Role	Notes	Ref.
2002	Sontham	Venkat		[1]
2010	Karma	Dev		[8]
2011	Panjaa	Munna		[19]
2013	Balupu	Rohit		[20]
	Kiss	Sunny		[21]
2014	Run Raja Run	Nayeem Basha		[22]
2015	Ladies & Gentlemen	Rahul		[23]
	Baahubali: The Beginning[lower-alpha 1]	Bhadrudu / Bhadra		[24]
	Dongaata	Venkat		[25]
	Size Zero[lower-alpha 1]	Shekar	Cameo	[26][27]
2016	Kshanam	Rishi		[28][29]
	Oopiri[lower-alpha 1]	Abhinav	Cameo	[30][31]
2017	Ami Thumi	Ananth		[32]
2018	Goodachari	Gopi/Arjun Kumar		[33][34]
2019	Oh! Baby	Savitri's Husband	Cameo	[35]
	Evaru	Vikram Vasudev (Fake) / Adarsh Varma		[36]
2022	Major[lower-alpha 2]	Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan		[37]
	HIT: The Second Case	Krishna Dev "KD"	Completed	[38]

Other crew positions

Accolades

Notes

References

External links

• Adivi Sesh at IMDb
• Adivi Sesh on Facebook