Venu

Venu Thottempudi (Telugu: వేణు తొట్టెంపూడి) (born 4 June 1976) is an Indian actor who primarily works in Telugu Cinema. He has acted in several successful Telugu movies as a lead actor. He is the nephew of Telugu film director B. Gopal.

Career

After finishing his engineering from Dharwad Engineering College, Venu started pursuing acting as his career. For his first acting job, he was cast as the main lead in a movie directed by P. Bharathiraja. After a brief period of shooting, the movie was stalled and later cancelled due to production problems. After this, Venu's friends namely Shyamprasad, Sai and Prabhu helped him become an actor. To promote Venu, Venkata Shyamprasad formed S. P. Entertainments banner and the other two friends were involved in design and planning. Under this banner, In 1999 Venu started his career with the movie Swayamvaram, directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar. Co-starring Laya, the movie was very successful at box-office and Venu bagged a Nandi Special Jury Award for the movie. Venu became well-known for his dialogue delivery, timing, expressions and clear portray of emotions. In 2000, Venu won the boxoffice once again with Chiru Navvuto. G.Ramprasad, who earlier worked with B.Gopal as an assistant director is roped in as the director for this movie. This movie co-starring Shaheen Khan was produced once again by S.P.Entertainments. Chiru Navvuto became one of the milestones in Venu's career.
Having two good hits in the early stages of his career, Venu landed up with a bunch of offers. Later he appeared in a few unsuccessful films like Manasu Paddanu Kaani directed by Veeru and Veedekkadi Mogudandi? directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana. He later bounced back with couple of hits like Hanuman Junction directed by M. Raja and Pellam Oorelithe directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy. In 2003, his movie Kalyana Ramudu co-starring Prabhu Deva and Nikita Thukral was directed by G. Ram Prasad. His next releases include Sadaa Mee Sevalo(2005) directed by Neelakanta, Bahumati directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy and Allare Allari directed by Muppalaneni Siva.
In 2007, his movie Yamagola Malli Modalayindi co-starring Srikanth, Meera Jasmine and Reemma Sen was released. This movie was successful at the box-office. In 2008, he was seen in a small yet vital role in the movie Chintakayala Ravi starring Venkatesh. In 2009 he was seen in yet another successful movie Gopi Gopika Godavari directed by Vamsy and co-starring Kamalinee Mukherjee. In 2011, Venu was seen in Dileep Polan's Mayagadu opposite Charmy Kaur. His next release is titled Ramachari, directed by Eshawar. He is paired with Kamalinee Mukherjee in this movie once again after Gopi Gopika Godavari. Soundtrack of the movie was released in October 2011. Venu will also be seen in N. T. Rama Rao Jr.'s upcoming movie Dammu, directed by Boyapati Srinu.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role(s)	Co-Stars	Director	Notes
1999	Swayamvaram	Venu	Laya	K. Vijaya Bhaskar	Nandi Special Jury Award
2000	Manasu Paddanu Kaani	Venu	Ramya Krishnan, Raasi	K. Veeru
2000	Chiru Navvuto	Venu	Shaheen Khan	G. Ram Prasad
2001	Veedekkadi Mogudandi?	Venu	Shruthi Raj, Geetu Mohandas	E.V.V
2001	Hanuman Junction	Sathru	Arjun, Jagapati Babu, Laya, Sneha	M. Raja
2002	Priyanesthama	Surya	Malavika	R. Ganapathi
2002	Malli Malli Chudali	Pavan	Janani	Pawans Sreedhar
2003	Kalyana Ramudu	Kalyana Ramudu	Prabhu Deva, Nikita Thukral	G. Ram Prasad
2003	Pellam Oorelithe	Subbu	Rakshita, Sangeetha, Srikanth	S. V. Krishna Reddy
2003	Pellamtho Panenti	Madhu	Laya, Kalyani	S. V. Krishna Reddy
2004	Kushi Kushiga	Sree Kumar	Jagapati Babu, Ramya Krishnan, Nikitha, Sangeetha	G. Ram Prasad
2004	Cheppave Chirugali	Venu	Ashima Bhalla, Abhirami	Vikraman
2005	Sadaa Mee Sevalo	Tilak	Shriya Saran	Neelakanta
2005	Illalu Priyuralu	Venu	Divya Unni	Bhanu Shankar
2006	Sri Krishna 2006	Venkateshwarlu	Gowri Munjal, Srikanth	Vijayendra Prasad
2007	Bahumati	Venkata Ramana	Sangeetha	S. V. Krishna Reddy
2007	Allare Allari	Anand	Allari Naresh, Parvati Melton	Muppalaneni Shiva
2007	Yamagola Malli Modalayindi	Jr. Chitragupta	Srikanth, Meera Jasmine, Reemma Sen	Srinivasa Reddy
2008	Deepavali	Venu	Aarthi Agarwal, Megha Nair	Haribabu
2008	Chintakayala Ravi	Ravi's Friend	Venkatesh, Anushka Shetty	Yogie
2009	Gopi Gopika Godavari	Gopi	Kamalinee Mukherjee	Vamsy
2011	Mayagadu	Leela Krishna	Charmy Kaur	Dileep Polan
2012	Ramachari	Ramachari	Kamalinee Mukherjee	Eshwar Ghanapati	Filming
2012	Dhammu		NTR, Trisha Krishnan	Boyapati Srinu	Post-Production