Happy Birthday Ram Charan Teja: Fighter@35

Ram Charan Teja is the brightest star in the Telugu film firmament filled with family constellations. The crown prince of megastar Chiranjeevi's empire, Ram is steadily, albeit slowly, creating a foothold for himself in South India's biggest movie industry. As he turns 35, we take a pictorial journey through the years.

Ram Charan Teja was born on March 27, 1985 to Telugu actor Chiranjeevi and his wife Surekha in Chennai. He currently lives in Hyderabad with his family. His illustrious relatives include uncles Pawan Kalyan, Nagendra Babu and Allu Aravind, and cousins Allu Arjun and Allu Sirish. Ram Charan has two sisters named Sushmita and Sreeja.

Ram Charan debuted in the year 2007 with hit-maker Puri Jagannadh's Chirutha. The film was a huge commercial success and critics praised Ram Charan's performance with an emphasis on his dancing and action.

He followed this up with a double role in 2009's Magadheera directed by S S Rajamouli. The blockbuster film was dubbed in Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi. Ram Charan's performance as a 17th century warrior re-incarnated as a modern day racer of motorbikes earned him the Filmfare South for Best Actor in a Telugu film.

His early success faltered with his third film Orange, which was released in 2010. There was to be no hat-trick at the box office but while the film was a commercial disaster, Ram Charan's performance was noted once again.

In 2012, Ram Charan's performance in Rachcha was singled out for praise and was hailed by critics as having shades of his father's legendary star quality.

He once again donned a dual role in 2013's Naayak. The film was a major hit and critics noted his continued improvement as an actor.

Finally, Ram Charan made his Bollywood debut with the Hindi/Telugu bilingual film Zanjeer (Toofan in Telugu). The film , which was a remake of the 1973 film which established Amitabh Bachchan as the 'Angry Young Man', was the biggest disaster of Ram's short career. Co-starring Priyanka Chopra, Zanjeer sank without a trace at the box office.

Ram Charan then appeared in V V Vinayak's Yevadu in 2014. The film, where he played a dual role again, was another superhit. In his 8 films yet, 4 have been superhits while 2 have been super disasters.

On June 14, 2012, Ram Charan broke a million female hearts when he married childhood sweetheart Upasana Kamineni in Hyderabad. A series of grand ceremonies were attended by the who's who of Indian cinema including Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth.

His next film Govindudu Andarivadele released in 2014 to great critical and commercial success.

However, the same cannot be said about his 2015 release Bruce Lee - The Fighter, which was directed by Sreenu Vaitla.

In 2016, Ram featured in Surender Reddy's Dhruva and in 2017, he featured in Sukumar's period drama Rangasthalam. Ram Charan was last seen in the 2019 film Vinaya Vidheya Rama, in which he co-starred with Kiara Advani and Vivek Oberoi. The film did not perform well at the box office.

Ram Charan's next project is S S Rajamouli's RRR, co-starring Alia Bhatt, Jr NTR and Ajay Devgn.

We wish Ram a great year and a great career ahead.