Soundarya

Soundarya's first movie was the Kannada film Gandharva in 1992. In the same year, she acted in the Telugu movie Raithu Bharatham, with Krishna, directed by Tripuraneni Sriprasad alias Varaprasad. She acted in more than 100 movies, predominantly in Telugu, in a span of 12 years. Telugu actor Venkatesh has described her as "a thorough actress in Indian Cinema".[17]

She began with lead roles in Kannada, her mother tongue, and went on to become the most popular actress in Telugu films. Her first film in Telugu was Rajendrudu Gajendrudu, directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy. Real commercial recognition came to her with Hello Brother (1994), directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana, in which she starred alongside Nagarjuna and Ramya Krishna.[18] She played an award-winning role in Ammoru, directed by Kodi Ramakrishna, starring alongside Ramya Krishna and Suresh and played the role of Bhavani, a devotee of Goddess Ammoru. She had eleven releases in 1995.[17] In Tamil, she got major acclaim for her debut film Ponnumani, opposite Karthik and Sivakumar for playing the role of a mentally disabled person.

According to D. Ramanaidu, the "Most Beautiful Pairs of Telugu cinema" are NTR and Savitri, ANR and Vanisri, Chiranjeevi and Vijayashanti, Daggubati Venkatesh and Soundarya.

In 1997, she continued her successful run with Pavitra Bandham, Pelli Chesukundam, Amma Donga, Maa Aayana Bangaram, Osi Na Maradala and Aaro Pranam, winning acclaim from all over the industry for her performances. She also starred alongside South Indian superstar Rajinikanth in Arunachalam, which became the highest-grossing film of 1997 in Tamil cinema. This stardom made her come out of the shadow of mainstream heroines and she chose scripts which had a wide potential of performance even alongside big stars which was clearly reflected in her movies. Though the industry regarded her to be the golden hand, as a former director's daughter, she always regarded the success not as a one-man show, but teamwork across 36 departments.[17]

In 1998 the critical success of Choodalani Vundi, directed by Gunasekhar, opposite Chiranjeevi took her to the pinnacle. She also starred along Kamal Haasan and Prabhudeva in Kaathala Kaathala in Tamil in the same year, dubbed in Telugu as Navvandi Lavvandi, directed by Singeetam Srinivas Rao. Pelli Peetalu and Sri Ramulayya, Ninne Premistha in Telugu and Doni Saagali in Kannada were commercially successful. Anthahpuram, directed by Krishna Vamsi, stood as one of the finest performances of Soundarya in her career, winning her a State Nandi Award for Best Actress and also her second consecutive Filmfare Award for Best Actress.

Her 1999 release Raja, opposite Venkatesh, was another blockbuster and won her a third Filmfare Award. Her other releases, Padayappa opposite Rajinikanth, Azad opposite Nagarjuna and Premaku Velayera, Premaku Swagatam and Arundhati further solidified her position. In the same year, she starred opposite Amitabh Bachchan in the Hindi movie Sooryavansham.[17]

In 2000, she starred in Annayya, opposite Chiranjeevi, Jayam Manadera and Devi Putrudu opposite Venkatesh, Ninne Premistha, opposite Nagarjuna and Srikanth and several others that displayed her acting abilities, such as Eduruleni Manishi and Sri Manjunatha opposite Chiranjeevi, Arjun Sarja, Ambareesh and Sumalatha and Narasimha, opposite Rajinikanth and Ramyakrishna, Pelli Peetalu, Dongata and Nagadevatha.[17] She also made guest appearances in songs - with Akkineni Nageswara Rao in Mayabazar, directed by Dasari Narayana Rao, in Adhipathi, with Nagarjuna and in Shubhalagnam, with Ali. Later after the entry of the next generation, her market was slowed down.

In 2004 Balakrishna announced the remake of Nartanasala, and a launch event was held in Hyderabad. Soundarya was signed to play Draupadi[19] but the film was shelved following her death.

She worked with almost all the top directors, like Dasari Narayana Rao, K. Raghavendra Rao, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, A. Kodandarami Reddy, Priyadarshan, Girish Kasaravalli, S. V. Krishna Reddy, K. S. Ravikumar, Krishna Vamsi, Kodi Ramakrishna, E. V. V. Satyanarayana, Muthyala Subbaiah, Gunasekhar, P. Vasu, Muppalaneni Shiva, Bharathi Kannan, Sundar C.

She starred opposite all major actors: with Super star Krishna in 5 movies, Mega star Chiranjeevi in 4 Telugu and 1 Kannada movie, Mohanlal in 1 movie, Nagarjuna in 5 movies, Venkatesh in 8 movies, Jagapathi Babu in 7 movies, Mohan Babu in 5 movies, Rajashekar in 5 movies, Suman in 3 movies, Harikrishna in 2 movies, Srikanth, Saikumar in 5 movies, Rajendra Prasad in 4 movies and Nandamuri Balakrishna in one movie. She has also acted with several other heroes such as Vinod Kumar, Naresh, Suresh, Harish, Abbas, Vineeth, Vadde Naveen, Ramesh Babu, Avinash, Bhanu Chander and J. D. Chakravarthy.[17]

In Tamil, she collaborated with superstar Rajinikanth for 2 movies, Kamal Haasan for one movie, Karthik for 2 movies, Arjun Sarja for 1 movie, Vijaykanth for 2 movies and Parthiban for 2 movies. She has also acted opposite Vikram, Anand, Rehman, and shared screen space with Shivaji Ganesan in Padayappa.[17]

In Kannada, she has acted with Vishunuvardhan, Anant Nag, Ravichandran, Shashikumar, Ramesh Arvind and Avinash. In 1996, she acted in the musical blockbuster Sipayi, along with Ravichandran and Chiranjeevi, dubbed in Telugu as Major. In 2002, she received the National Film Award for Best Feature Film (producer) for Dweepa. She also acted with Ambareesh in Sri Manjunatha. Her last film was Apthamitra, a runaway hit starring Vishnuvardhan and Ramesh Arvind. The film won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress posthumously in 2004.

Soundarya acted in the Hindi film Sooryavansham, opposite Amitabh Bachchan. She starred in several Tamil super-hits including Arunachalam and Padayappa with Rajinikanth and Kaadhala Kaadhala, with Kamal Haasan. She has acted in the Malayalam film Kilichundan Mampazham, with Mohanlal and Sreenivasan and Yathrakarude Sradhakku with Jayaram.