Celebrating her birthday this month will be Pooja Gauthami Umashankar who was born on June 25, 1981. A household name in Sri Lankan cinema, she is a versatile and humble actress who has appeared in Tamil, Sinhalese and Malayalam films. Following a series of successful commercial ventures, Bala’s ‘Naan Kadavul’ saw Pooja’s performance as a blind beggar which was praised by the critics, securing a Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Character Artiste.

Being such a humble and grounded individual, she has showed that even though she’s a highly acclaimed actress in Sri Lanka, she has been true to her fans. It wasn’t easy mastering the language of Sinhala but she managed to overcome the language barrier very well. Pooja’s mother is a Sri Lankan Sinhalese and her father is Tamilian.

The languages she can speak are Kannada, Tamil, Sinhalese, and English. She went to school and college in Bangalore, Baldwin’s and Mount Carmel College respectively. Her father’s name is Uma Shankar who was at Valparai, working for the Hindustan Unilever Limited as a manager. Her father was not at all interested in film industry but supported his daughter every step of the way.

Pooja started her film career with her debut film ‘Ullam Ketkumae’ in Tamil with Shaam, Laila, Arya, and Asin Thottumkal which was directed by the late Jeeva. It wasn’t released until her second and third films ‘Jay Jay’ and ‘Attagasam’ were released in 2003 and 2004 respectively. She bagged one of the main roles in Bala’s ‘Naan Kadavul’ by replacing Bhavana being appreciated by the critics for her fantastic performance.

She became a sensation in Sri Lankan film industry and a household name after the success of ‘Anjalika’ (2005) and ‘Asai Man Piyambanna’ (2007). This also earned her the role of broadband ambassador for SLT (Sri Lanka Telecom). For television, she became one of the judges in the popular reality dance show Aatam Paatam Kondatam opposite dance master Prasanna on Kalaignar TV. Overall, Pooja has shone on stage and will enthrall movie goers in Sri Lanka with her latest offering ‘Suwanda Denuna Jeewithe’ called ‘Fragrance of Life’ opposite Roshan Ranawaka.

Courtesy: SundayObserver

Posted on Sunday, June 13, 2010 @ 23:00:41 LKT by SaNDuN

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