Riya Sen

Riya Sen (born Riya Dev Varma; 24 January 1981) is an Indian actress and model who predominantly appears in Hindi, Bengali, English, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films.

Sen comes from a royal background; her father Bharat Dev Varma hails from the royal family of Tripura.

He was the son of Ila Devi, a princess of Cooch Behar and nephew of Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur.

Sen's mother Moon Moon Sen and grandmother Suchitra Sen were reputed veteran actresses.

She began her acting career when she was five years old, playing her mother's daughter on screen for the first time.

Later in 1991 she worked as a child actress in the film Vishkanya.

Riya first appeared as a child artist in the film when she was five years old later in 1991 she worked as a child actress in the film Vishkanya., where she played the role of the young Pooja Bedi.

Sen was first recognised as a model when she performed in Falguni Pathak's music video Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi at the age of seventeen in 1998.

Since then, she has appeared in music videos, television advertisements, fashion shows, and on magazine covers.

Sen has worked as an activist and appeared in an AIDS awareness music video with the aim of dispelling popular myths about the disease.

She also helped raise funds for paediatric eye-care and underprivileged children.

At the age of 19, she did National Film Awards winning director Bharathiraja's Tamil film, Taj Mahal (2000) which was written by Mani Ratnam while music was composed by A. R. Rahman, which did not achieve commercial success.

Her first commercial success in her film career was with Style, a 2001 Hindi low-budget comedy directed by N. Chandra.

She was scheduled to make her Bollywood film debut in Love You Hamesha, opposite actor Akshaye Khanna; however, the film was stalled, and she finally made her debut in N. Chandra's Style in 2001.

This low-budget comedy was the first commercial success in over a decade for the director.

A launch pad for Riya, cast in the female lead along with fellow-newcomers, Sharman Joshi, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal, the film pioneered a trend of commercial success for small budget films in India.

Riya and the second female lead of the film were replaced by aspirant actresses Sonali Joshi and Jaya Seal in Xcuse Me.

Her next success was Jhankaar Beats, comedy revolving around the music of legendary composer R D Burman, which saw her playing a small and glamorous role alongside Shayan Munshi, Juhi Chawla, Rahul Bose, Rinke Khanna and Sanjay Suri.

Produced by Pritish Nandy, publishing director of The Times of India, the film was made on a budget of Rs. 25 million (US$525,000), marking the sixth in a row of small to medium budget films made by Pritish Nandy Communications (PNC).

Despite being part of a wave of offbeat films that mostly failed to make an impact at the box office, it drew public attention upon its release, which led to a commercial success among a restricted audience targeted by a selective release in twenty cities.

It was one of the first films made in Hinglish, a mixture of Hindi and English.

Her films Style and Jhankar Beats have done wonders commercially.

Her latter films Harry Baweja's Qayamat and Subhash Ghai's Apna Sapna Money Money were also box office hits and that ran for 150 days.

These films were 4 consecutive hits in a row.

While many of her appearances have been item numbers and cameos, few of her leading roles have been in Low-budget films.

Though she had small roles in Dil Vil Pyar Vyar (2002), Qayamat (2003) and Plan (2004), attention was drawn to her item numbers in all three, especially the one in Qayamat that featured her in a bubble-bath.

The two sisters were later cast together in director Ajai Sinha's 3 Bachelors, a Bengali film that started as The Bachelor in 2002 and was released in 2012.

Some of her other notable films include producer Pritish Nandy's musical film, Jhankaar Beats (2003) in Hinglish, and Malayalam horror film Ananthabhadram (2005).

She won the Star Guide Award as best actress for her performance in Noukadubi.

Besides this, she performed another item number in James (2005) on director-producer Ram Gopal Varma's behest, who has a history of casting aspirant actress-models like Sameera Reddy, Isha Koppikar and Koena Mitra in similar roles.

Her most successful non-Hindi film has been director Santhosh Sivan's Ananthabhadram (2005).

The first Malayalam venture for both Riya and Sivan, was both a critical and commercial success.

It won five Kerala State Film Awards and surfaced as one of the biggest Malayalam successes that year.

She played the role of Bhama in the film, a village girl who is lured by Digambaran, the evil magician portrayed by Manoj K. Jayan.

Furthermore, she took part in a dance number for Sajid Khan's Heyy Babyy (2007) that featured several mainstream Bollywood actresses.

Riya has, in addition to Hindi films, appeared in Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English films.

Her film career began in the earnest with Tamil films such as Bharathi Raja's Taj Mahal, co-starring Manjoj Bharatiraja in the male lead, and Manoj Bhatnaghar's Good Luck, opposite Prashanth.

Both of the films failed commercially, she also did a dance number for N. Maharajan's Arasatchi.

Her first English language movie was It Was Raining That Night, a remake of the Bengali film Hei Brishtir Raat, scripted by Sudeshna Roy and directed by Mahesh Manjrekar.

In the film, she collaborated with her mother Moon Moon Sen. Riya was slated to appear in Anjan Dutt's Bengali-English bilingual film The Bong Connection with her sister, but she was eventually dropped from the project and replaced by Peeya Rai Chaudhary.