Nithya Menen

 

Born	22 October 1988 (1988-10-22) (age 22) Calicut, Kerala
Occupation	Actress, model, playback singer
Years active	2008 - present

Nithya Menen ( is an Indian film actress, who works mainly in the Malayalam film industry. She has also acted in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films, besides trying her hand at playback singing.

 Early life

Nithya Menen was born in Calicut, Kerala and grew up in Bangalore, Karnataka and studied Journalism from Manipal Institute of Communication. She quotes that she never wished to become an actress but a journalist as she was "an idealist", but felt journalism was "not what it used to be". She then decided to become a filmmaker as she could express her ideas "better through films", and enrolled for a course in cinematography at the FTI Pune. During the entrance examination, she met Nandini Reddy, who "brainwashed" and convinced her to take up acting. Nandini Reddy would later turn director and sign Nithya for the lead female role in her first project.

Career

She, however, appeared first on screen as a child artiste when she was eight in the Indian English language film, Hanuman (1998), playing the younger sister to Tabu's character. The 2008 off-beat film Aakasha Gopuram, directed by National Film Award-winning director K. P. Kumaran, marked her debut in a leading role, in which she was paired with Mohanlal. She was in the midst of her 12th class exams when she was offered the role, after Mohanlal had spotted her on the front cover of a tourism magazine. Her performance was well received, with critics writing that she shows "sparkle in her debut venture" and "makes her entry in an impressive role", though the film, based on the Norwegian play The Master Builder, got mixed reviews and was a financial failure. She next made her Kannada debut with the film Josh. She essayed a supporting role in the film, which received rave reviews,and became a commercial success as well, with her performance garnering her a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category at the 57th Filmfare Awards South.
In 2011, her first release was Nandini Reddy's romantic comedy Ala Modalaindi, which was Nithya's maiden Telugu venture as well. The film opened to favorable reviews by critics and turned out to become a sleeper hit, while Nithya received critical praise for her performance. Idlebrain's Jeevi in his review cited that she "epitomized Nitya character with her fabulous performance", "looks beautiful in all kinds of dresses" and was "the best debut in recent years of Telugu cinema after Samantha in YMC", while another critic wrote that she was a "charming find" and "...quite the Genelia replacement that our cinema so badly needs right now." Further more, she also sang two songs for the soundtrack album of the film, tuned by Kalyani Malik. Nandini Reddy, later, went on to describe Nithya as "the discovery of the decade". Following Ala Modalaindi, she starred in Santosh Sivan's historical fiction Urumi as part of an ensemble cast. She portrayed a Chirakkal princess named Bala, playing the love interest of Prabhu Deva's character, which gained positive remarks, with a Sify review claiming that she "looks pretty and is a scene stealer". Nithya quoted that much of her character was based on "Santosh's perception of who I am", with Sivan stating that he had written that role for her and that only she could play it. She next appeared in ad-filmmaker Jayendra's bilingual venture 180/Nootrenbadhu, made and released in Tamil and Telugu, in which she played a photo journalist named Vidhya. She described the character as "bubbly, full of life, nosey, wide-eyed and innocent in life" and to be similar to herself.
She is currently working on half-a-dozen projects; Karmayogi, a Malayalam adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Sibi Malayil's Violin and the Gautham Menon-produced Veppam are in post-production stages, while she is currently shooting for the Telugu romance film Ishq and Aidondla Aidu in Kannada, for which she had sung and also chorographed one of the songs, titled "Payasa".

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Language	Notes
1998	Hanuman		English	As child artiste
2005	Seven O' Clock	Anu	Kannada
2008	Akasha Gopuram	Hilda Varghese	Malayalam
2009	Josh	Meera	Kannada	Nominated, Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress (Kannada)
	Vellathooval	Jiya	Malayalam
	Kerala Cafe	Nithya	Malayalam	(segment Happy Journey)
	Angel John	Sofia	Malayalam
2010	Apoorvaragam	Nancy	Malayalam
	Anwar	Asna	Malayalam
	Makaramanju		Malayalam
2011	Ala Modalaindi	Nithya	Telugu
	Urumi	Bala	Malayalam
	180	Vidya	Telugu
	Nootrenbadhu		Tamil
	Violin	Angel	Malayalam
	Karmayogi	Moonumani	Malayalam	Post-production
	Veppam	Revathy	Tamil	Post-production
	Aidondla Aidu		Kannada	Filming
	Ishq		Telugu	Filming
	Jogayya		Kannada	Filming