P. Ravi Shankar

Early and personal life P. Ravi Shankar was born to Telugu parents in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Ravi Shankar's mother, Krishna Jyothy Pudipeddi, was a Telugu actress, who acted with Kannada thespian Dr. Rajkumar and others in films such as Sri Krishna Garudi, Makkala Rajya and others. Ravi Shankar's father, Pudipeddi Jogeswara Sharma, was also an actor and dubbing artist who worked in many Telugu, Kannada and Tamil films. His elder brother, Pudipeddi Sai Kumar entered the film industry as a dubbing artist and later became an actor in the Kannada Film Industry.

Career P. Ravi Shankar made his film debut as a lead actor in 1986 with R. Narayana Murthy's Telugu film Aalochinchandi. Lack of success in his acting career forced him to pursue dubbing as a profession like his father and brother. His first professional dub was the Telugu film Rowdyism Nasinchali, where he dubbed for Tamil actor Mohan Raj. In 2004, he directed a Kannada film titled Durgi, starring Malashri. The film was later remade in Telugu as Narasimhudu, starring N. T. Rama Rao Jr., Ameesha Patel and Sameera Reddy. Ravi provided the story for the film which was directed by B. Gopal. The film was heavily criticized and bombed at the box office.

His dubbing work in the 2009 film Arundhati, where he voiced for Sonu Sood, was praised in a review of Idlebrain. He won the Nandi Award for Best Male Dubbing Artist for his performance in the film and was referred to as "Bommali Ravi Shankar" by the Telugu media.

His breakthrough role was from the 2011 Kannada film Kempe Gowda. The film's popularity led to Ravishankar being called "Kempegowda Ravishankar" or "Arumugam Ravishankar" and he grew to become a household name in Karnataka. His performance was not only widely praised by the critics.

Ravi Shankar, after Kempe Gowda, became a busy supporting actor in the Kannada cinema. He then acted in films such as Manikya, Dandupalya, Adhyaksha, Charulatha, Bachchan, Edegarike, Varadanayaka and others. He was also seen in Telugu films such as Kurradu and Happy Happy Ga and in Tamil films such as Vettaikaaran and Kollaikaran.

Partial filmography

Awards and nominations He won his first Nandi Award for Best Male Dubbing Artist in 1999 for Ram Gopal Varma's Prema Katha. He dubbed for Manoj Bajpai in the film. He won his second Nandi Award in 2002 for Chiranjeevi's Indra, in which he dubbed for Mukesh Rishi. His next Nandi Award was in 2004 for his dubbing in S. S. Rajamouli's Sye. He dubbed for Pradeep Rawat in the film. He won four consecutive Nandi Awards from 2006 to 2009 for the films Pokiri, Athidhi, Arundhati and Anjaneyulu respectively. He also won Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Male Dubbing Artist for his dubbing for Ashish Vidyarthi in 2001 film Dhill.