Prabhu Deva

Prabhu Deva
Born	Prabhu Deva Prasad Sundaram (1970-04-03) 3 April 1970[1] Mysore, Karnataka, India[1]
Occupation	Film actor, director, dance choreographer, producer
Years active	1988–present
Spouse(s)	Ramlath (m. 1995 div. 2010)
Parent(s)	Mugur Sundar
Relatives	Raju Sundaram (brother) Nagendra Prasad (brother)

Prabhu Deva Prasad Sundaram (born 3 April 1970) known simply as Prabhu Deva is an Indian film director, dance choreographer and actor,^[2] who has worked in Tamil, Telugu, Bollywood, Malayalam and Kannada films. In a career spanning twenty-five years, he has performed and designed a wide range of dancing style and has garnered two National Film Awards for Best Choreography.^[3]

Beginning with a series of acting roles in the 1990s and early 2000s, Prabhu Deva featured in several commercially successful films including Kadhalan (1994), Minsara Kanavu (1997) and VIP (1997). After further critically acclaimed performances in the comedy Kaathala Kaathala (1998) and the family drama Vanathai Pola (2000), Deva then failed to recreate the success of his earlier films and his box office value began to decline and he subsequently made appearances in supporting roles and low budget Telugu language films. He then successfully ventured into direction with the 2005 Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, and the success of the project prompted further offers for Deva as a director. He then went on to make highly profitable films in Telugu, Hindi and Tamil languages such as Pokkiri (2007), Wanted (2009), Rowdy Rathore (2012) and Singh is Bling (2015).^[4]

In August 2015 he started a production company Prabhu Deva Studios.^[5]

Early life and career

Prabhu Deva was inspired by his father, Mugur Sundar, a choreographer for South Indian movies, and took up dancing learning Indian classical dance forms such as Bharatanatyam from Dharmaraj and Udipi Lakshminarayanan^[6] as well as Western styles. Raju Sundaram and Nagendra Prasad are his brothers.

Prabhu Deva first appeared as a background dancer for a song in the 1988 Tamil film Agni Natchathiram. Deva's first venture as a choreographer was Vetri Vizha (1989). He has since then choreographed in over 99 movies. From choreography, he went into acting. His first film as an actor was Indhu (1994) with actress Roja. In 1999, Dheva, Shobhana and A. R. Rahman performed with a Tamil cinema dancing troupe at the "MJ & Friends" Michael Jackson tribute concert in Munich, Germany. He acted alongside his brothers in the movie One Two Three. As of 2010, he serves as chairman and director of the Prabhudheva's Dance Academy in Singapore.^[7] He planned to release his first video album called It is boring in 2013.^[8] He also played the lead role in ABCD (Any Body Can Dance), the first 3D dance film in India.^[9]

Personal life

Deva at a promotion for the film Wanted

Prabhu Deva married Ramlath who changed her name to Latha. They had three children, but their eldest son died of cancer in 2008.^[10][11] In 2010 his wife filed a petition at the family court, seeking directions against Deva from live-in relationship with the actress Nayantara and requesting a reunion with him.^[12][13] Furthermore, Ramalath threatened to go on hunger strike if Prabhu Dheva married Nayantara, while several women's organizations conducted protests against Nayantara for bringing disrepute to Tamil culture, burning an effigy of her.^[14] In 2012, Nayantara confirmed that she had ended her relationship with Prabhu Deva.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Deva has moved to Mumbai and is residing at Boney Kapoor's old place called Green Acres.^[19] Prabhu Deva's mother Mahadevamma is from the village of Doora, about 17 kilometres (11 mi) from Mysore. He owns property in Doora, and has developed a farm there.^[20]

Other appearances

Deva with Sonakshi Sinha and Akshay Kumar during the promotions of film Rowdy Rathore

Deva made brief appearances in solo items such as "April Mayile" in Idhayam (1991), "Lallaku Doldapi Ma" in Suriyan (1992), "Chinna Rasave" in Walter Vetrivel (1993), and "Chikku Bukku Rayile" in Gentleman (1993) after appearing as junior artist in songs like "Rajathi Raja" in Agni Natchathiram (1988). He performed with Madhuri Dixit in the song "Ke Sera Sera" for the movie Pukar. He acted along with Lawrence Raghavendra in the 2006 film Style. He performed with Apache Indian in the song "No Problem" for his film Love Birds.

Prabhu Dheva's performance at IPL Season 5 opening ceremony

He performed in the film Abrakadabra for the song "Om Sh". He performed in the Nana Patekar, Karisma Kapoor starrer film Shakti: The Power (2002) for a song. He performed with Upendra in Kannada film H20. He made a special appearance in Pokkiri (which was directed by himself) with Vijay in the song "Aadungada". He performed again with Vijay in his own direction Villu for the song "Hey Rama" as a guest appearance. He performed with Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Govinda for a song in his 2009 directorial Wanted.

He performed at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Indian Premier League on 3 April in Chennai along with Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and American artist Katy Perry. The event was special to Prabhu Deva as he shared his 39th birthday on the same day.^[21][22]

In the media

	Kalluri Vaanil The Tamil song became widely known to the English internet audience for its phonetic lyrics.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

On 18 August 2007, a music video for the song "Kalluri Vaanil" from the Indian-Tamil movie Pennin Manathai Thottu was uploaded to YouTube by Mike Sutton (YouTube user Buffalax).^[23] The video was retitled Benny Lava and created as a soramimi, edited to include incorrect English subtitles that phonetically approximate the original Tamil lyrics.

Reactions to the "Kalluri Vaanil" soramimi were mixed. Some felt that the video was done in "good fun" while others worried that their culture was being mocked.^[23] The music video was featured on The Colbert Report on 4 December 2008^[24] and appeared on the Heavy Metal documentary Global Metal.

Filmography

As Director

As Actor

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Film	Language	Role	Notes
Indhu	1994	Tamil	Pattasu
Kaadhalan	1994	Tamil	Prabhu
Raasaiyya	1995	Tamil	Raasaiyya
Love Birds	1996	Tamil	Arun
Mr. Romeo	1996	Tamil	Romeo, Madras
Minsara Kanavu	1997	Tamil	Deva
VIP	1997	Tamil	Guru
Naam Iruvar Nammaku Iruvar	1998	Tamil	Prabhu, Deva
Love Story 1999	1998	Telugu	Vamsi
Kaathala Kaathala	1998	Tamil	Sundaralingam
Ninaivirukkum Varai	1999	Tamil	Janakiraman (Jonny)
Suyamvaram	1999	Tamil	Kanna
Time	1999	Tamil	Srininvasa Murthy
Vaanathaippola	2000	Tamil	Selvakumar
Eazhaiyin Sirippil	2000	Tamil	Ganesan
James Pandu	2000	Tamil	James
Pennin Manathai Thottu	2000	Tamil	Sunil
Doubles	2000	Tamil	Prabhu
Ullam Kollai Poguthae	2001	Tamil	Anbu
Alli Thandha Vaanam	2001	Tamil	Sathyam
Manadhai Thirudivittai	2001	Tamil	Deva
Charlie Chaplin	2002	Tamil	Thiru
H2O	2002	Kannada, Tamil	Vairamuthu
Santosham	2002	Telugu	Pawan
One Two Three	2002	Tamil	Tirupati	Partially re-shot and also released in Telugu and Kannada
Agni Varsha	2002	Hindi	Rakshasha
Thotti Gang	2002	Telugu	Suri Babu
Kalyana Ramudu	2003	Telugu	Rajesh
Alaudin	2003	Tamil	Alaudin
Oka Radha Iddaru Krishnula Pelli	2003	Telugu	Murugan
Engal Anna	2004	Tamil	Kannan
Intlo Srimathi Veedhilo Kumari	2004	Telugu	Gopal
Andalu Dongale Dorikithe	2004	Telugu	Bujji
Style	2006	Telugu	Ganesh
Chukkallo Chandrudu	2006	Telugu	Sharat	Guest appearance
Naayudamma	2006	Telugu	Prabhu
Michael Madana Kamaraju	2008	Telugu	Michael
Urumi	2011	Malayalam	Vavvali
ABCD	2013	Hindi	Vishnu
ABCD 2	2015	Hindi	Vishnu
Kalavaadiya Pozhuthugal	2016	Tamil	Chezhiyan	Delayed
Untitled A.L.Vijay Project	2016	Telugu Tamil Hindi		Post-Production, Also Producer[25]

As Producer

He also ventured into production by establishing Prabhu Deva Studios

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Film	Year	Director	Language	Notes
Sila Samayangalil	2016	Priyadarshan	Tamil	Filming
Vinodhan	2016	Victor Jayaraj	Tamil	Filming
Untitled A.L.Vijay Project	2016	A. L. Vijay	Tamil Telugu Hindi	Post-Production

Dancer

References

External links

Media related to Prabhu Deva at Wikimedia Commons

• Prabhu Deva at the Internet Movie Database