Pooja Hegde is an Indian Model and movie actress who is majorly known for her appearances in South Indian movies (Tamil and Telugu films). Apart from acting in South Indian films, she has played in some Hindi movies as well. She is also known for being a participant in the Miss Universe competition in 2010 and made it to be the second runner-up. She is currently 31 years and one of the young Indian actors who are still in the middle of leaving a mark on the film industry. She is much more popular in the South Indian film industry than in Hindi films, to the point that she even became one of the highest-paid female actors in South India.

Early Life and Family

Pooja was born on the 13^th of October in 1990 and raised in the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra. She hails from Tulu speaking family. Her father is Manjunath Hegde, who is also an Indian film actor known for his Kannada films. Her mother's name is Latha Hegde. Apart from her parents, Pooja also has an elder brother Rishabh Hegde, who currently works as an orthopaedic surgeon. Her parents have their origins in Karnataka. She is fluent in Tulu as it is her mother tongue, and besides Tulu, she is very fluent in Hindi, English, Kannada, and Marathi, and she has learned Telugu due to her Telugu cinema career. She used to study at M.M.K. college and almost always participated in all dance and fashion shows in the college. In 2009, Pooja Hegde participated and also won the title of Miss India Talented Honor. She then competed in the 2009 Miss India Competition, but despite her previously earned title, she got eliminated in the early rounds and did not make it to the finals at all. In the next year, she participated in the Miss Universe India competition 2010 and became the second runner-up. Despite not winning, she earned the title of Miss India South Glamorous Hair 2010, which was a subsidiary competition taking place at the time.

Career

The early phase

Her career began as a model, and eventually, she got into South Indian films. She made her acting debut in 2012 when she played a lead role in the Tamil superhero film Mugamoodi by Mysskin, who is otherwise known as Shanmugha Raja. She played the part of Shakthi, whose character was portrayed as a fun-loving girl and later inspired the male lead character (who was being played by Jiiva) to change his view on society. Mysskin had seen some of her photographs from when she was the second runner-up in Miss Universe India and chose to sign her as the lead actress. She practised Tamil dialogue for the movie. According to her, the similarities between Tulu and Tamil were quite helpful for her during that time. The film had high expectations tied to it by everyone involved in making the superhero Tamil film, and as such, the film was released in August 2012 with a grand opening at the box office. However, the movie did not perform as expected. As more and more people watched the film and started giving reviews, it ended up having mixed to negative reviews. The movie became a commercial failure in the end.

As a result of the film's bad performance, it earned bad reviews and critics to Pooja as well. Multiple websites gave very mixed reviews about her acting talent, from saying she was not good enough or her acting was a little disappointing to some negative critics as well stating that she does not have enough talent as an actress to work in the film industry. During the 2^nd South Indian International Movie Awards, she got a nomination for Best Female Debut Actress. Though she did not win the award and lost to Lakshmi Menon, the nomination helped her gain a good reputation for her acting talent.

In 2014, Pooja got signed for a second film Oka Laila Kosam, which was a Telugu starring Naga Chaitanya. This movie left a positive impact on her career, and she earned quite a lot of praise for her performance in the movie. At about the same time, the 62^nd Filmfare Awards (South) took place, where she earned a nomination for Best Actress. She was a little hesitant about working in the film at first, but the success of Vijay Konda's last venture as a director encouraged and promoted her to take the role in the movie. In order to portray the lead role, she had to undertake Telugu lessons and get fluent in them.

During the same year, she received the chance to play the lead role in another Telugu film, “Mukunda”. The movie was a mix of a romantic and action-style tale set in the backdrop of a village about a college student who can go to any extent for the sake of his friends. It starred Varun Tej in the lead male role "Mukunda" and Pooja Hegde in the female lead role "Gopika". The movie was released in late 2014. Her performance in the movie impressed many, and especially her performance in the song Gopikamma made a memorable stamp on a lot of people. She earned great praise and recognition for her impressive performance. The year 2014 turned out to be a big one for Pooja, not only because of her successful performances in Mukunda and Oka Laila Kosam but because she signed a Bollywood movie to make her debut in the Hindi cinema too. In July 2014, she was signed as the female lead role for Ashutosh Gowariker's film Mohenjo Daro.

The movie was set in 2016 BCE at the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The male lead role in the movie “Sarman” was played by Hrithik Roshan. The story was about a farmer named Sarman, who travelled to the city of Mohenjo Daro and fell in love with Chaani – a high-status Priest's daughter whose character was played by Pooja. It took Ashutosh Gowariker over three years to research and make the script for the movie. All the time, he used to work closely with archaeologists in order to make sure the historical authenticity of his film. Ashutosh Gowariker's wife just happened to spot Pooja one day in an advertisement and decided to call her for the audition. Pooja Hegde successfully completed the audition and was officially signed as the lead role for Mohenjo Daro. Before the release of the film, she was offered an opportunity to work in a film with Mani Ratnam as the director. She was very committed to the movie and, as a result, decided to reject the offer and also made the decision to not work in any regional Indian language movie until her Hindi film got released. Mohenjo Daro was finally released in the year 2016, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a major box office flop. In the next year, she appeared in a Telugu film DJ: Duvvada Jagannadham, which was a mix of action and comedy being directed as well as written by Harish Shankar, and was produced by Dil Raju under Sri Venkateswara Creations. She played the lead role of Pooja, and Allu Arjun played the role of male lead Duvvada Jagannadha Sastri "Jagannadham"/ DJ. The film follows Allu Arjun as a Brahmin priest who has an alter-ego state, "DJ", in which he fights off crime. He one day falls in love with "Pooja" because of her independent nature at his friend's wedding. Pooja is the daughter of the State Home Minister, who is greatly involved in multiple crimes. The film received moderate to some positive reviews. Many critics had the opinion that the film was worth the time to some extent and entertaining to watch, but it certainly fell short in many aspects. Others have a similar opinion that the film could have been much more. Pooja Hegde got moderate reviews from the movie, although at some point, it felt like the critics overlooked her a little due to the presence of Allu Arjun's dance.

Success in 2018 and Later

In the year 2018, she played a role in 3 Telugu films. Although, one of them was just a special appearance she made in the song “Jigelu Rani” from the action movie Rangasthalam. The song quickly became trending on platforms like YouTube. Her performance was praised by the audience and the critics. The second role she played was alongside Bellamkonda Sreenivas in the action movie Saakshyam. She played the female lead character Soundarya Lahari who is a woman teaching Hinduism and culture. It was directed by Swriwass and, upon its release, received mixed reviews. It was referred to as 'enjoyable', but parts of it, like songs and some scenes, were 'boring'.

The third movie was a blend of action and drama called “Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava”. The movie was directed by Trivikram Srinivas and starred Jr. NTR as the male lead in the role of Veera Raghava. She played the character of "Aravinda" in the film, who lets Veera live with her family and falls in love with him. The following year, 2019, brought her three more films – two Telugu films and one Hindi film. Her first Telugu film of the year was Maharshi which was directed by Vamsi Paidipally and starring Mahesh Babu as the male lead. It did not perform too well and received some mixed reviews from the audience. Her second movie of the year was Gaddalakonda Ganesh, which was officially a remake of the 2014 Tamil film Jigarthanda. Originally, the film’s title was supposed to be Valmiki, but due to some legal disputes, it eventually was changed to Gaddalakonda Ganesh. The reviews received by the movie were moderately positive but had some negative ones too. 2019 wasn't too great of a year for Pooja's career until she made her appearance in Sajid Nadiadwala’s film Housefull 4. This comedy film was her return to Bollywood after three long years. It was directed by Farhad Samji and starred Bobby Deol, Akshay Kumar, Kriti Sanon, Ritesh Deshmukh and many other well-known stars. She played the role of Rajkumari Mala Rana, who is reincarnated as Pooja Thakral. To no one's surprise, Housefull 4 was a huge success, not only because it was a great film on its own, but also because the Housefull series of movies had already established a mark in Bollywood and is a very well-loved series by the people. The movie grossed over INR 280 croresworldwide. Needless to say, the year 2019 brought great success for Pooja Hegde.

In 2020, she worked alongside Allu Arjun in an action drama film, "Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo", directed by Trivikram. She played the part of "Amulya". Upon its release, the film gained huge success. Most of the reviews it received were quite positive. Pooja gained a lot of praise for her performance in the movie. The film even claimed the title of being one of the Highest-grossing Telugu movies ever and grossed an earning of over INR 250 crores. Her performance in the movie even fetched her multiple awards, the most notable being SIIMA Awards for best actress – Telugu. Her performance was especially praised in the song “Butta Bomma” and received a great positive response.

Later, she signed and released another movie in 2020, "Most Eligible Bachelor" which was directed by Bommarillu Bhaskar and starred Akhil Akkineni as the male lead actor. She played the role of a stand-up comedian, "Vibha", in the movie. The movie was about an NRI, Harsha and Vibha, consisting of romantic and comedy elements. It was supposed to be released sooner, but due to the pandemic, it had to be postponed multiple times until it finally got released on the 15^th of October, 2021. The movie delivered moderate performance from a commercial point of view and earned mixed to positive reviews by the community. The main problem, according to the reviews, was that while the first half was very enjoyable, the second half wasn't quite able to "cut it". The film collected INR 510 million worldwide after its release, which was moderate. In 2022, she worked in a period romance film Radhe Shyam directed by Radha Krishna Kumar, with her co-star being Prabhas. She got a lot of positive reviews for her performance in the movie. This was a multilingual film and hence was shot in both languages - Hindi and Telugu at the same time. Unfortunately, the film turned out to be a big box office flop. It suffered the greatest losses out of any Indian film, accounting for over INR 100 crores.

Although the film’s song “Aashiqui Aa Gayi” gained quite a bit of popularity mainly due to Pooja Hegde’s performance, her grace and style in the song got great appraisal from everyone. The second film she worked on in 2022 became a big commercial success. It was a Tamil film Beast which was her only Tamil film for a gap of 9 years. Her co-star in the movie was Vijay, and the director of the movie was Nelson. It earned over INR 250 crore worldwide after its release. She then made an appearance alongside Ram Charan in the Telugu film Acharya. The movie became a big failure commercially. Her next film was F3: Fun and Frustration, which was a sequel to F2. She did not play a huge part but rather made a special appearance as herself in the song “Life Ante Itta Vundaala” which is also called “Party Song of the Year”. As always, she received a lot of positives for her performance in the song.

About Her Influence and Future Plans

Pooja Hegde has made her mark in the media as one of the most popular actresses in Telugu cinema. She actively works for a number of brands and their products. She won the “Hyderabad Most Desirable Women” in 2017. Her most notable proof of media influence is her standing in the 7th place on Forbes India's Most Influential Stars on Instagram in South Cinema for the year 2021. Her next closest film is Cirkus, which is a Hindi film being directed by Rohit Shetty as the female lead, with the male lead being Ranveer Singh. She will also appear along with Salman Khan in the upcoming movie Kabhi Eid Kabhi Diwali. Also, she is currently filming for a later film Jana Gana Mana. Her fans are eagerly waiting to be able to watch her new movies. The audience and critics are especially looking forward to her upcoming Hindi films in order to see what it brings to the people and for Pooja's career in the Hindi cinema.