Avinash Yelandur

Theatre

His first job after his M.Phil. was that of an English lecturer in National Institute of Engineering, Mysore. He continued to teach at MES College Bangalore as one of the most popular lecturers of the college. However, soon his passion for theatre took him abroad to train in acting at Mermaid Theatre, London.^[4] On returning home, he worked in Kannada theatre as part of the renowned B Jayashree's troupe "Spandana" and with the Shankar Nag as part of his "Sanketh" for many years.

Films

Films were a natural choice for Avinash after his debut in G. V. Iyer's Madhvacharya (1986) based on the life and times of the twelfth-century enlightened master as the protagonist Madhvacharya, a film that won several National and State Awards. His debut in mainstream cinema however, was with Shivarajkumar's Samyuktha (1988), which went in to become a hit with audiences, ushering him into the world of South Indian Cinema. He has worked with more than 200 directors such as K. Balachander, Girish Kasaravalli, T. N. Seetharam, A. R. Murugadoss, Puri Jagannadh, P. Vasu, Vetrimaaran, Siva, Suseenthiran, Duniya Suri, Prashanth Neel, Gautham Vasudev Menon and T. S. Nagabharana.

His other notable performances were in Girish Kasaravalli's Dweepa (2002), in which he played the lead opposite Soundarya, T. S. Nagabharana's Chinnari Mutha (1993) and T. N. Seetharam's Mathadana (2001), all three of which won National Award. He also lists Singaaravva (2003) and Chigurida Kanasu (2003) among his most memorable films.^[5]

P. Vasu's hit horror series Apthamitra (2004), Chandramukhi (2005) and Aptharakshaka (2010) were high points in his career. 5Ters, an experimental (computer graphics) children's film in Hindi gave him the opportunity of playing good and evil characters and he considers the film to be a high point of his career.

Apart from his diverse repertoire, he has had the privilege of playing major roles alongside doyens such as Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Rajinikanth, Mammootty, stars such as Nagarjuna, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Venkatesh, Shiva Rajkumar, Vijay, Ajith Kumar, Vikram, Suriya, Puneeth Rajkumar, Kiccha Sudeep, Yash, Arya, Karthi, Mahesh Babu, Prithviraj Sukumaran and several of the younger stars of South Indian Cinema.

Kannada films

Tamil films

Telugu films

Other language films

Television