Ram Pothineni

Pothineni Seetha Ram Chowdary, professionally known as Ram Pothineni, is an Indian actor who works primarily in Telugu cinema. Born on 15 May 1988 in Hyderabad, his family originates from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. He was born to Murali Pothineni and has family ties within the film industry, being the nephew of Telugu film producer Sravanthi Ravi Kishore and the cousin of actor Sharwanand.

Pothineni made his theatrical acting debut in 2006 with the film Devadasu, which became a box office success and earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut – South. He followed his debut with Jagadam, directed by Sukumar and co-starring Isha Sahani. He achieved a career breakthrough in 2008 with the action comedy Ready, directed by Srinu Vaitla and co-starring Genelia D'Souza, which was a commercial success.

In 2009, Pothineni appeared in two feature releases, Maska and Ganesh. In 2010, he starred in Rama Rama Krishna Krishna, a film produced by Dil Raju and directed by Sriwass. He continued his career as a leading man with the 2011 release Kandireega. In 2012, he starred alongside Tamannaah in Endukante... Premanta!, directed by Karunakaran and produced by Sravanthi Ravi Kishore.

In 2013, Pothineni featured in Ongole Githa alongside Kriti Kharbanda, directed by Bhaskar and produced by B.V.S.N. Prasad. The same year, he co-starred alongside Venkatesh in Masala, an action comedy remake of the Hindi film Bol Bachchan, directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar and produced by Sravanthi Ravi Kishore and D. Suresh Babu. In 2015, he starred in Gopichand Malineni's commercially successful film Pandaga Chesko, as well as Shivam.

In 2016, Pothineni starred in two releases produced by his own production house, Sri Sravanthi Movies: the commercial success Nenu Sailaja and the Santosh Srinivas-directed film Hyper. He subsequently starred in the 2017 coming-of-age film Vunnadhi Okate Zindagi and the 2018 romantic comedy Hello Guru Prema Kosame, directed by Trinadha Rao Nakkina.

Pothineni achieved major commercial success with the 2019 action thriller iSmart Shankar, directed by Puri Jagannadh, which grossed over ₹90 crore as the highest-grossing film of his career. In 2021, he portrayed a dual role in Red, a remake of the Tamil film Thadam. He played a police officer in the 2022 Lingusamy-directed feature The Warriorr.

Pothineni subsequently starred opposite Sreeleela in Boyapati Srinu's 2023 film Skanda, followed by Double iSmart in 2024. In May 2026, RAPO CINEMATICS announced RAPO23, a film project written and directed by Pothineni, marking his official directorial debut.

Across his career, Pothineni has won one Filmfare Award and one SIIMA Award. Outside of film roles, he did his first brand endorsement for Garnier alongside John Abraham. He has also been featured repeatedly on the Hyderabad Times Most Desirable Men list, placing 11th in 2017, 11th in 2018, 3rd in 2019, and 2nd in 2020.