Adivi Sesh Indian Actor and Director Born 1985 in Hyderabad

Early life

Adivi Sesh Sunny Chandra, known professionally as Adivi Sesh, was born on 17 December 1985 in Hyderabad, which was then part of Andhra Pradesh and is now in Telangana. He spent a few years of his schooling in Chennai, then grew up in Berkeley, California, where he went to Berkeley High School. He began undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University but did not complete the degree.

Career

Sesh appeared on screen for the first time in 2002, in a small guest role in the Telugu film Sontham. His next step came in 2010, when he directed, wrote and starred in Karma, a film in which he played Dev, a character who can foresee events moments before they happen. The film marked his debut as both a director and a writer.

In 2011 he took a part in Vishnuvardhan's Panjaa, playing Munna, a wealthy and dangerous young man who had returned from abroad. It was his first villain role. He played an antagonist again in Balupu in 2013. The same year he starred in and directed Kiss. He then took supporting parts in Run Raja Run and S. S. Rajamouli's epic Baahubali: The Beginning, and in 2015 he played lead roles in Ladies & Gentlemen and Dongaata.

Kshanam in 2016 changed the direction of his work. He co-wrote the film's story and screenplay with its director, Ravikanth Perepu, and also starred in it. Afterwards he turned down more than fifty scripts that offered him a lead part, and he made brief appearances in Size Zero and Oopiri, as well as a role in Ami Thumi. Goodachari, an action thriller that he wrote and that Sashi Kiran Tikka directed, was released on 3 August 2018. A special appearance in Oh! Baby followed, and then the suspense thriller Evaru, written and directed by Venkat Ramji, which came out on 15 August 2019 and played in cinemas for more than four weeks.

Major is a biographical film about Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, in which Sesh played the title character and also worked as a writer. In April 2020 he said that he had started writing Goodachari 2, a sequel to his 2018 spy film. He later played the lead in the investigative drama HIT: The Second Case, and he appears in HIT: The Third Case. In 2026 he starred in Dacoit: A Love Story, which was directed by Shaneil Deo and released on 10 April 2026 and in which he is also credited as a writer, with Mrunal Thakur, Anurag Kashyap, Atul Kulkarni and Zayn Marie Khan in the cast.

Sesh works mainly in Telugu cinema, and many of the films he stars in are action and suspense thrillers. He is noted for often writing the stories and screenplays of his own films. His listed credits include 11 films in total, with Prakash Raj and Vennela Kishore each appearing alongside him in two of them.

Recognition

Sesh has received an IIFA Award Telugu, a SIIMA Award and a Nandi Award. For his role in Major he also won one of the first Gaddar Awards.

Personal life

Sesh has a younger sister, who is a doctor in the United States, and his cousin, Sai Kiran Adivi, is a film director. He has written to the Committee for Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals in India, asking it to act against animal testing at research facilities.