J. D. Chakravarthy

Chakravarthy was born into a Telugu speaking family of carnatic singer Prof. Dr. Kovela Shantha, and father Nagulapati Suryanarayana Rao. He was born in Hyderabad, India. His elder sister Vijayanthi is settled in the United States.^[11][12] He did his schooling in St. George's Grammar School (Hyderabad), and completed B. E. from Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology.^[13][14]

He debuted in 1989 through Ram Gopal Verma's debut Telugu film, Siva as J.D., as one of the student leaders, and in the same year appeared in a supporting role in the Malayalam film Ennodu Ishtam Koodamo before devoting all his time to films under his mentor's Ram Gopal Varma 's production.

He has worked in many Telugu films directed by ace film makers of the time like Mani Ratnam, Krishna Vamsi, S. V. Krishna Reddy, K. Raghavendra Rao, Kodi Ramakrishna, E. V. V. Satyanarayana, Siva Nageswara Rao, Gunasekhar, and Vamsy.^[15][16] His first Hindi film in a lead role, Satya, was critically acclaimed and became a commercial blockbuster.^[17] In 2002, he played a role of Sri Lankan Tamil Eelam fighter Dileepan, in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, Kannathil Muthamittal.

He also starred in Hindi films like Vaastu Shastra, and Aag alongside Sushmita Sen, and Bhoot Returns alongside Manisha Koirala. He made his film directing debut, with Darwaaza Bandh Rakho and anthology film Darna Zaroori Hai got archived at the New York Institute of Technology, New York, America as part of the film course ^[18][19]

He has returned to Telugu film industry with Homam as a director and actor in the year 2008.^[20] He then went on to direct Siddham.^[19] He had a role in director Vishnuvardhan's Tamil film Sarvam, starring Arya and Trisha.^[3] In 2016, he has appeared in the Malayalam film Bhaskar the Rascal pairing with Nayanthara also starring Mammootty. Then he played a young army officer in another Malayalam film Shikhamani, and made his Kannada film debut with the unreleased Raavani alongside Pooja Gandhi.^[21][22]