Sneha
Born	Suhasini Rajaram Naidu (1981-10-12) 12 October 1981 (age 30) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Other names	Punnagai Ilavarasi (Princess of Smile)
Occupation	Actress, Promotional model
Years active	2000 – present
Spouse	Prasanna
Parents	Rajaram Naidu Padmavathy Rajaram

Sneha (born Suhasini Rajaram on 12 October 1981) is an Indian film actress, who has acted in mostly Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films and also one Kannada language film. She debuted in the 2000 Malayalam film Ingane Oru Nilapakshi, directed by Anil and had her first commercial success with Aanandham (2001). She became one of Tamil cinema's contemporary lead actresses in the 2000s, following appearances in several commercially successful films.

She has won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance in Unnai Ninaithu (2002) and also received the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress twice, in 2001 for her performances in the films Virumbugiren, Aanandham, Punnagai Desam and later for Pirivom Santhippom (2008).

Early life[link]

Sneha, born as Suhasini, is the daughter of Rajaram and Padmavathy, as youngest of the 4 children. She was born in Mumbai in a Telugu family and later, her family immediately moved to Sharjah, Dubai where she completed her schooling. The family later settled in Panruti, Tamil Nadu where she owns a Marriage Hall (She sold this in early 2012 to local business man, which now is renamed to R.C. Mahal). She got married to Prasanna, a Tamil actor on 11 May 2012.^[1]

Career[link]

2000 - 2004[link]

Fazil recommended Sneha to Anil-Babu who was searching for a heroine for his love story Ingane Oru Nilapakshi (2000). The film featured Sneha as an aspiring dancer, with the actress performing for seven classical songs.^[2] She was signed by Susi Ganeshan for his directorial debut Virumbugiren in 2000, which however became long delayed and Ennavale opposite Madhavan became her first Tamil release. The film proved to be a commercial failure.^[3] Later that year, Sneha starred in N. Linguswamy's family drama Aanandham, which featured her as part of an ensemble cast and in K. Balachandar's Parthale Paravasam. She finished the year with a foray into Telugu cinema, with an appearance in Priyamaina Neeku, followed by Tholi Valapu.

She was part of a total eight films that releases in 2002. M. Raja's Hanuman Junction became a major success. Other films that year included the Vasanth's Hey! Nee Romba Azhaga Irukke, Unnai Ninaithu and April Madhathil. The former bombed at the box office, while the latter emerged commercially successful.^[4] Her performance in Unnai Ninaithu led to her being awarded the first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress.^[5] Subsequently she acted in lead role in King and a supporting role in Pammal K. Sambandam with Vikram and Abbas, respectively. Virumbugiren that featured Sneha as a rustic village belle, eventually released in December 2002 and went on to win several Tamil Nadu State Film Awards; Sneha herself won the Best Actress award.^[6]

Sneha acted in two films in 2003, Vaseegara with Vijay and a heroine-oriented double role in Parthiban Kanavu. While the former was a failure, the later was a huge success. She received high praise for her performance in Parthiban Kanavu,^[7] with The Hindu writing: "Till date this is the best role that has come Sneha's way and the charming actress has utilised the opportunity well. With make-up or without it, Sneha sparkles".^[8]

2004 was a mixed year for the actress, with Jana, Bose and Adhu all failing at the box-office. However, Vasool Raja MBBS opposite Kamal Haasan and Autograph and the Telugu film Venky were huge successes.

2005 - 2008[link]

The years 2005 and 2006 saw her acting in Telugu films such as Sankranthi with Venkatesh, Radha Gopalam with Srikanth, Sri Ramadasu with Nagarjuna, and Thuruppu Gulan with Mammootty winning plaudits at box office, while others released in the respective years turning as average grosser at the box office. She essayed the role of a commercial sex worker in Selvaraghavan's Pudhupettai, starring Dhanush. With Thuruppu Gulan, she paired with Mammootty. In the year 2006, she made her debut into Kannada film industry through Ravi Shastri, which remains her only Kannada project till date.

In 2007, Sneha starred in Naan Avanillai a super hit and first hit since 2004, while her Telugu films Madhumasamand Maharadhi and Tamil film Pallikoodam turned out to be above-average grosser at box office.

Pirivom Santhippom, which saw her collaborating with Karu Pazhaniappan again, was her first film in 2008. Co-starring Cheran, the film opened to critical acclaim and emerged a sleeper hit, while fetching Sneha plaudits and several accolades. A review from Sify noted that she was "superb as Sala a woman torn by the dualities of her existence", labelling it as her "career best performance".^[9] She won her second Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress, besides the Vijay Award for Best Actress and nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress Award. Her Cameo appearance in the film Kuselan with Rajinikanth marked her 50th film in her career. She tried highly glamorous roles with Pandi and Inba, both turning out to be average grossers. She paired with Silambarasan in Silambattam which gave her another commercial success. Her Telugu films Nee Sukhame Ne Korukunna and Pandurangadu turned out to be average grossers while Adivishnu flopped at the box office.

2009 - present[link]

The thriller films Achchamundu Achchamundu, co-starring Prasanna and Hollywood actor John Shea, and Amaravathi, were her only releases of 2009 in Tamil and Telugu, respectively. Both films won many plaudits for dealing with bold themes of pedophiles and womb stealing, respectively. The former film won many awards in the International Panorama and the later grossed average at box office.

In 2010, she starred in Venkat Prabhu's Goa. She again forayed into a glamorous ultra-modern chick role with a few shades of grey. She made cameo appearances in Vishal's Theeratha Vilayattu Pillai and the critically acclaimed Vasanthabalan directorial Angadi Theru. She also appeared in three Malayalam films. She acted in Pramani with Mammootty and paired up with Mohanlal for the first time in Shikkar, The Hunt, which was a huge success and considered as a milestone in Mohanlal's history. Her last release of 2011 was Vande Mataram. Starring opposite Mammootty again, she played an aviator in the film, which released to mixed critical response and bombed at the box-office.

In 2011, she was first seen as a tough Police Officer in Bhavani IPS, which opened to mixed reviews and bombed at the box office, although Sneha received praise for her performance. Ponnar Shankar, a period film penned by M. Karunanidhi, where she appeared as a warrior-princess, opened to mixed reviews and didn't do well at the box-office. Rajanna, a period film based on Telangana issue opposite Nagarjuna for the second time, released on December 22, 2011 to stupendous reviews.

In 2012, she appeared in a guest role along with actor Vikram for the film Marina. Currently, Sneha is working on three projects; Vidiyal, where she appears as a Muslim girl for the first time and also alongside actor R. Sarath Kumar, Murattu Kaalai with Sundar C awaiting release and Haridas opposite Kishore currently under production.

Sneha was to make her Bollywood debut with Mad Dad, alongside Naseeruddin Shah and Ayesha Takia to be directed by Revathy S Varma. Sneha was also roped in to play Sita in Rajkumar Santoshi’s Ramayan featuring Ajay Devgn in lead. However, both the projects failed to take off.^[10] She was also reported to play a major role in Kochadaiyaan to be written by K. S. Ravikumar and directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth.^[11] In December 2011, Sneha confirmed in an interview that she will be starring opposite Rajinikanth.^[12] But later, she opted out of the project to allocate dates for the film Haridas to which, is already committed.

Modeling[link]

She has appeared in many commercials like Saravana Stores, Horlicks, Roobini Oil, Aashirvadh, Idhayam Dots, Jos Aalukkas, Power Shampoos, Shree Devi Textiles, Preethi Mixi, GRB Udhayam Ghee, Papilon, Vencobb Chicken, Nisha Fairness Cream etc. In 2010, she was announced the brand ambassador for Dabur Amla Nelli Hair Oil and Cavin Kare's Chinni's Pickle.

She also appeared in numerous Fashion Shows like Chennai International Fashion Week, Sydney Sladen Fashion Week and other shows which are held in Chennai and Mumbai.

Personal life[link]

Sneha was paired with Prasanna for the first time in Achchamundu! Achchamundu! (2009). Since then, there were numerous reports in the media on their affair. Prasanna was spotted in all her modeling shows and both were spotted together in Movie Previews. Though, both declined it as rumour, later, on November 9, 2011 Prasanna announced, "Yes... Sneha and I decided to marry soon with the blessings of our parents. The engagement will be announced later. Someone has mentioned that our marriage would be in March 2012. There is no truth in that report. We have planned to announce our marriage date properly later on. Till then, please wait and thanks for all!" through his PR.^[13][14] Sneha, later acknowledged the same on November 16, 2011.^[15] They got married on May 11, 2012 in Chennai.^[16]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Sneha at the Internet Movie Database

Sneha (Hindi: स्नेहा ) is a common name for Indian females. The name literally means "love." Sneha and similar spellings represent various people:

Sneha a name meaning friendship in telugu

• Sneha (actress), a South Indian film actress
• Sneha Ullal, an Indian (Hindi and Telugu) film actress
• Sneha Khanwalkar, an Indian music director
• Sneha Anne Philip, an Indian-American physician
• Anil Nataly, a tattoo on the left shoulder of Anil Nataly

An actor (sometimes actress for female; see terminology) is a person who acts in a dramatic or comic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity.^[1] The ancient Greek word for an "actor," ὑποκριτής (hypokrites), means literally "one who interprets";^[2] in this sense, an actor is one who interprets a dramatic character.^[3]

Terminology[link]

After 1660, when women first appeared on stage, actor and actress were initially used interchangeably for female performers, but later, influenced by the French actrice, actress became the usual term. The etymology is a simple derivation from actor with ess added.^[4] The word actor refers to a person who acts regardless of gender, and this term "is increasingly preferred", while actress refers specifically to a female person who acts. Actress "remains in general use",^[4] although in a survey of a "wide cross-section of current British English", compiled in 2010, actor was almost twice as commonly found as actress.^[5] Within the profession, however, the re-adoption of the neutral term dates to the 1950s–60s, the post-war period when women's contribution to cultural life in general was being re-evaluated.^[6] Actress remains the common term used in major acting awards given to female recipients.^[7]

The gender-neutral term "player" was common in film in the early days of the Motion Picture Production Code with regards to the cinema of the United States, but is now generally deemed archaic. However, it remains in use in the theatre, often incorporated into the name of a theatre group or company (such as the East West Players)^{[citation needed]}.

History[link]

Actors Jim Brochu and Steve Schalchlin performing in The Big Voice: God or Merman play.

The first recorded case of an actor performing took place in 534 BC (though the changes in calendar over the years make it hard to determine exactly) when the Greek performer Thespis stepped on to the stage at the Theatre Dionysus and became the first known person to speak words as a character in a play or story. Prior to Thespis' act, stories were only known to be told in song and dance and in third person narrative. In honour of Thespis, actors are commonly called Thespians. Theatrical legend to this day maintains that Thespis exists as a mischievous spirit, and disasters in the theatre are sometimes blamed on his ghostly intervention.

Actors were traditionally not people of high status, and in the Early Middle Ages travelling acting troupes were often viewed with distrust. In many parts of Europe, actors could not even receive a Christian burial, and traditional beliefs of the region and time period held that this left any actor forever condemned. However, this negative perception was largely reversed in the 19th and 20th centuries as acting has become an honoured and popular profession and art.^[8]

Techniques[link]

Method acting[link]

Method acting is a technique developed from the acting 'system' created in the early 20th century by Konstantin Stanislavski in his work at the Moscow Art Theatre and its studios. The Group Theatre first popularised the Method in the 1930s; it was subsequently advanced and developed in new directions by Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, Uta Hagen, Lee Strasberg (at the Actors Studio in the 1940s and 50s), and others.^[9] In Stanislavski's system', the actor analyzes the character in order to play him or her with psychological realism and emotional authenticity. Using the Method, an actor may recall emotions or reactions from his or her own life and use them to identify with the character being portrayed.

Method actors are often characterized as immersing themselves so totally in their characters that they continue to portray them even off-stage or off-camera for the duration of the project. However, this is a popular misconception. While some actors do employ this approach, it is generally not taught as part of the Method. Stella Adler, who was a member of the Group Theatre, along with Strasberg, emphasised a different approach of using creative imagination.^[10]

Method acting offers a systematic form of actor training in which the actor's sensory, psychological, and emotional abilities are developed; it revolutionized theatre in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Presentational and representational acting[link]

Presentational acting refers to a relationship between actor and audience, whether by direct address or indirectly by specific use of language, looks, gestures or other signs indicating that the character or actor is aware of the audience's presence.^[11] (Shakespeare's use of punning and wordplay, for example, often has this function of indirect contact.)

In representational acting, "actors want to make us 'believe' they are the character; they pretend."^[11] The illusion of the fourth wall with the audience as voyeurs is striven for.^[12]

As opposite gender[link]

In the past, only men could become actors in some societies. In the ancient Greece and Rome^[13] and the medieval world, it was considered disgraceful for a woman to go on the stage, and this belief persisted until the 17th century, when in Venice it was broken. In the time of William Shakespeare, women's roles were generally played by men or boys.^[14]

When an eighteen-year Puritan prohibition of drama was lifted after the English Restoration of 1660, women began to appear on stage in England. Margaret Hughes is credited by some as the first professional actress on the English stage.^[15] This prohibition ended during the reign of Charles II in part due to the fact that he enjoyed watching actresses on stage.^[16] The first occurrence of the term actress was in 1700 according to the OED and is ascribed to Dryden.^[7]

In Japan, men (onnagata) took over the female roles in kabuki theatre when women were banned from performing on stage during the Edo period. This convention has continued to the present. However, some forms of Chinese drama have women playing all the roles.

In modern times, women sometimes play the roles of prepubescent boys. The stage role of Peter Pan, for example, is traditionally played by a woman, as are most principal boys in British pantomime. Opera has several "breeches roles" traditionally sung by women, usually mezzo-sopranos. Examples are Hansel in Hänsel und Gretel, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.

Women in male roles are uncommon in film with the notable exceptions of the films The Year of Living Dangerously and I'm Not There. In the former film Linda Hunt played the pivotal role of Billy Kwan, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In the latter film Cate Blanchett portrayed Jude Quinn, a representation of Bob Dylan in the sixties, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Women playing men in live theatre is particularly common in presentations of older plays, such as those of Shakespeare, that have large numbers of male characters in roles where the gender no longer matters in modern times.^{[citation needed]}

Having an actor dress as the opposite sex for comic effect is also a long-standing tradition in comic theatre and film. Most of Shakespeare's comedies include instances of overt cross-dressing, such as Francis Flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The movie A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum stars Jack Gilford dressing as a young bride. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon famously posed as women to escape gangsters in the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot. Cross-dressing for comic effect was a frequently used device in most of the thirty Carry On films. Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams have each appeared in a hit comedy film (Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire, respectively) in which they played most scenes dressed as a woman.

Occasionally, the issue is further complicated, for example, by a woman playing a woman acting as a man pretending to be a woman, like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria, or Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. In It's Pat: The Movie, filmwatchers never learn the gender of the androgynous main characters Pat and Chris (played by Julia Sweeney and Dave Foley).

A few roles in modern films, plays and musicals are played by a member of the opposite sex (rather than a character cross-dressing), such as the character Edna Turnblad in Hairspray—played by Divine in the original film, Harvey Fierstein in the Broadway musical, and John Travolta in the 2007 movie musical. Linda Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously. Felicity Huffman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for playing Bree Osbourne (a male-to-female transsexual) in Transamerica.

See also[link]

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Csapo, Eric, and William J. Slater. 1994. The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: The U of Michigan P. ISBN 0-472-08275-2.
• Elam, Keir. 1980. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. New Accents Ser. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN 0-416-72060-9.
• Weimann, Robert. 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater: Studies in the Social Dimension of Dramatic Form and Function. Ed. Robert Schwartz. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-3506-2.

Further reading[link]

• An Actor's Work by Constantin Stanislavski
• A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method by Lee Strasberg (Plume Books, ISBN 0-452-26198-8, 1990)
• Sanford Meisner on Acting by Sanford Meisner (Vintage, ISBN 0-394-75059-4, 1987)
• Letters to a Young Actor by Robert Brustein (Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-00806-2, 2005).
• The Empty Space by Peter Brook
• The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler

External links[link]

Look up actor, actress, or player in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Actors' Equity Association (AEA): a union representing U. S. theatre actors and stage managers.
• American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA): a union representing U. S. television and radio actors and broadcasters (on-air journalists, etc.).
• British Actors' Equity: a trade union representing UK artists, including actors, singers, dancers, choreographers, stage managers, theatre directors and designers, variety and circus artists, television and radio presenters, walk-on and supporting artists, stunt performers and directors and theatre fight directors.
• Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance: an Australian/New Zealand trade union representing everyone in the media, entertainment, sports, and arts industries.
• Screen Actors Guild (SAG): a union representing U. S. film and TV actors.