Nithya Menen

Acting

Nithya Menen (born April 8, 1988) is an Indian actress and playback singer who works predominantly in Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi cinema. After appearing on screen as a child artist in *The Monkey Who Knew Too Much* (1998), she made her debut in a leading role with the Malayalam film *Aakasha Gopuram* (2008) and entered Kannada cinema with *Josh* (2009). Her breakthrough in Telugu cinema came with the romantic comedy *Ala Modalaindi* (2011), for which she won the Nandi Award for Best Actress. Over the following years, Menen established a prolific career across South Indian film industries, appearing in *Urumi* (2011), *Ishq* (2012), *Ustad Hotel* (2012), and *Bangalore Days* (2014). She won two Filmfare Awards for Best Actress – Telugu for *Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyinde* (2013) and the romantic drama *Malli Malli Idi Rani Roju* (2015). Her notable releases during this period also included *S/O Satyamurthy* (2015), the romantic drama *O Kadhal Kanmani* (2015), *24* (2016), *Janatha Garage* (2016), the psychological thriller *Awe!* (2018), and the Tamil action thriller *Mersal* (2017), which earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress – Tamil. In 2019, she made her Hindi film debut in *Mission Mangal*. For her performance in the drama *Thiruchitrambalam* (2022), Menen won the National Film Award for Best Actress and the Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil. In streaming, she starred in the thriller series *Breathe: Into the Shadows* (2020–2022), the comedy-drama series *Kumari Srimathi* (2023), and *Masterpeace* (2023). Her subsequent credits include *Kadhalikka Neramillai* (2025), *Thalaivan Thalaivii* (2025), and *Idli Kadai* (2025).