Amala Akkineni (born 12 September 1968) is an Indian film actress and Animal welfare activist. She has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi films.
Amala was born on September 12, 1968 in West Bengal to an Irish mother and Bengali father. She has an elder brother and sister. She moved with her family to Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh as a kid when her navy officer father was stationed there. After attending Catholic school with middling success she switched to Kalakshetra, Chennai where she trained in Bharatnatyam. She is married to Telugu movie actor Nagarjuna. She is also one of the prominent animal rights activists of India.
Amala made her debut in a Tamil film titled Mythili Yennai Kadali directed by T. Rajendar, which was a big box office hit. Winning overnight fame, she charmed cinegoers in a flurry of fifty films. She acted in a number of Tamil movies. Her performance in Pushpak and Agni Natchathiram (dubbed in Telugu as Gharshana) are unforgettable. She acted with her future husband in hits like Nirnayam and Siva. The latter was a mega blockbuster and brought her wider fame and recognition. She acted with iconic actors like Rajinikanth, Mohan Lal, Kamal Hassan, Mammootty, Prabhu, Mohan, Satya Raj(with whom gossips about her relationship) in Tamil,Kumar Bangarappa and V. Ravichandran in Kannada,Mohan Lal,Suresh Gopi in Malayalam and Nagarjuna, Venkatesh,Rajashekar and Chiranjeevi in Telugu among several others. Her Hindi co-stars were Mithun Chakraborty, Vinod Khanna and Aditya Pancholi. She worked with veteran directors like Bharathiraja, Maniratnam and Ram Gopal Varma.