Shriya Saran, also known by the mononym Shriya, is an Indian film actress and model. She has acted in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi language films, as well as a few films in English and Kannada. Saran was born in Dehradun and spent most of her childhood in Haridwar. In 2001, her dance master gave her the opportunity to appear in Renoo Nathan's debut music video "Thirakti Kyun Hawa", which brought Saran to become known by many Indian filmmakers. Although Saran aspired to become a well known dancer and believed she could enter the field of cinema as such, she was rather offered a leading role. Thus, Saran made her film debut in 2001 with the Telugu film Ishtam, and had her first commercial success with Santhosham. She subsequently appeared in several more Telugu films, while making in-roads in the Hindi and Tamil film industries. In 2007, Saran starred in Sivaji, the highest-grossing Tamil film at that time. She also gained critical acclaim for her role in the 2007 Bollywood film Awarapan. In 2008, Saran played the lead role in her first English film, the American-Indian co-production The Other End of the Line. 

September 11th, 1982 in Uttarakhand (Age 41)