Southern hottie Priyamani

Priya Vasudev Mani Iyer or Priyamani will make her second Bollywood appearance in RGV's Rakta Charitra, opposite Vivek Oberoi and fellow South star Suriya.

The movie deals with conspiracies that shroud the 2005 assassination of Andhra Pradesh's political leader Paritala Ravindra.

Vivek Oberoi plays Paritala Ravi and Suriya takes the role of Ravi's political nemesis, Maddelacheruvu Suri.

Priyamani plays Gangula Bhanumati, Suri's (Suriya) wife.

Priyamani was born in a Tamil Iyer family with roots in Palakkad and grew up in Bangalore.

A model turned actress, she has acted in several Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films.

Priyamani is Bollywood actress Vidya Balan's cousin.

After completing her schooling, Priyamani did a stint in print modelling.

Her debut film Kangalal Kaidhu Sei in Tamil was released in 2004.

She broke into the big league with Pellaina Kothalo(2006) in which she played one half of a newlywed couple opposite Jagapati Babu.

The movie was a sleeper hit and brought instant stardom to the struggling actress.

This southern-belle is best known for her National Award-winning performance in the 2006 Tamil film Paruthi Veeran, opposite south Indian actor Suriya's younger brother, Karthi Sivakumar.

She had a Telugu blockbuster, starring opposite Jr. NTR, in the 2007 film Yamadonga. Her next Tamil hit was Malaikottai opposite Vishal.

This hottie from down south showed off her talent once again when she won huge critical acclaim in 2008 for her role in the Malayalam film Thirakkatha.

Thirakkatha was a biopic of late film actress Srividya. Priyamani's portrayal of her turbulent life earned her another Filmfare Award.

Priyamani also starred in the commercial entertainer Arumugam but it failed to impress at the box office.

The same year, she appeared in the Tamil Ninaithale Inikkum, a remake of Malayalam blockbuster Classmates. It was her third outing opposite Prithviraj and the movie was a modest success.

She was critically acclaimed in Raam, also starring Kannada actor Puneet Rajkumar.

Priyamani has been much awarded in her short career winning the National Award, Filmfare and Tamil Nadu State Award for Best Actress. She also won an award at the Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema.

In early 2010, the actress made a sizzling appearance in Telugu movie Golimaar.

Golimaar was inspired by the real life incidents of encounter specialist Daya Nayak.

Priyamani played an event organiser in the movie.

Also earlier this year, Priyamani was seen on the silver screen as Suhani in Sadhyam, a Telugu film co-starring Jagapati Babu.

However, her biggest project, before the RGV venture, has been Mani Ratnam's bilingual film Raavan, alongside Suriya, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai.

Raavan also was this young starlets first brush with Bollywood.

Currently, Priyamani is filming for a Kannada film Eno Onthara and another Telugu project Ragada