Pooja Umashankar

Pooja Umashankar

Birth : 1981-06-25, Colombo, Sri Lanka

History

Pooja Gauthami Umashankar, mononymously known as Pooja is an Indian-Sri Lankan actress, who has primarily appeared in Tamil films as well as Sinhala, Malayalam and amateur films. Following a series of successful commercial ventures, Bala's Naan Kadavul saw Pooja's performance as a blind beggar praised by the critics, securing major awards, including the South Filmfare and Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. She simultaneously worked in Sinhala cinema and was part of several successful films like Anjalika (2006), Asai Man Piyabanna (2007), Suwanda Denuna Jeewithe (2010) and Kusa Pabha (2012), thus establishing herself as one of the leading actresses of Sinhala cinema.

Profile

Pooja Umashankar
Pooja Umashankar

Movies

Sarigama
Maria
A woman leaves a convent to become a governess to the children of a Army officer widower.
Paththini
Kannaki
Kannagi (Pooja) born in the Chola kingdom, one of the three kingdoms in South India around 1,500 years ago, is happily married to Kovalan (Uddika), a millionaire. Kovalan attends the crowning ceremony of the Chola dancing queen, Princess Madhavi (Aruni). Pleased with he performance the king wants Madhavi to indicate whom she would pick to become her husband from among the wealthy male guests present. She selects Kovalan. Spellbound by Madhavi's beauty and her dancing skills, Kovalan too likes Madhavi. The happy marriage crashes. Kovalan spends all his wealth on Madhavi. Broken-hearted, the weeping Kannagi bears up the agony.
Kadavul Paathi Mirugam Paathi
Guest Appearance
Jai and Neha, eloping to Hyderabad to get married, offer lift to a stranger on the highway not realizing that he is a murderous psychopath who has escaped from a mental asylum.
Vidiyum Munn
Rekha
Greed, lust and anger collide and threaten to rip apart the lives of two disparate women on the run to seek refuge. Vidiyum Munn explores the darker side of life and the emotional imbalance it can create in the hearts of those who succumb to it.
Kusa Pabha
Princess Pabha
The love story between beastly-looking prince Kusa and beautiful princess Paba.
Orange
Meenakshi Teacher (Guest Appearance)
A young man falls in love with a girl but has to keep lying to make her happy. Unable to continue, he tells her that it cannot go on and breaks up with her.
Drohi
Roja (Guest appearance)
Samy and Karuna grow up together in the slums of Royapuram. One day, they witness the brutal murder of their teacher by a gangster. While Karuna manages to kill the gangster, Samy tells to the cops that Karuna was responsible for the murder.
TN 07 AL 4777
(cameo)
The film's story revolves around a taxi driver and the son of a rich businessman, in which the two come in contact. The taxi driver, protective of his profession, lets everyone think he is an insurance broker while the rich youngster has the problem of retrieving his father's will and eventually leaves the locker key in the taxi driver's cab in an accident. The driver gets falsely accused and is put in jail while the rest of his family comes to know his true job as a taxi driver. The debacles that occur thereafter form the climax of the story.
Naan Kadavul
Hamsavalli
This surreal Tamil entry tells the story of Rudran, who is abandoned as a child in Kasi and grows up to be a mystic who indulges in strange rituals and believes that he has power over life, death and rebirth.
Friends
Manorani
Yahaluvo (Friends) (යහළුවෝ), also known as Yahaluwo, is a 2007 Sinhala romantic drama film. It was directed by Sumitra Peries, produced by Namal Senasinghe, the brother of Sujeewa Senasinghe, and scored by Navaratne Gamage. The film stars Sujeewa Senasinghe and Pooja Umashankar in lead roles along with Iranganie Serasinghe, Tony Ranasinghe, Kamal Addararachchi, and Anarkali Akarsha in supportive roles. It is the 1097th Sri Lankan film in the Sinhala cinema.
Oram Po
Rani
Chandru (Arya) and Bigilu (Lal) are close friends. Chandru is an expert auto driver & racer while Bigilu is a mechanic expert at customizing autos to run at the dream speed of 130 km/h. Son of Gun (John Vijay) is the chief of a rival group who wants to outsmart the duo. Chandru, the race champ tries to settle the dues for his auto through a race, which is almost a cakewalk for him. He and Bigilu challenge Son of Gun to a race, and a date is fixed.
Asai Man Piyabanna
Ranmalee
Ranmalee, a village girl talented in both music and dancing meets the son (Praveen) of a businessman who are on a visit to Ranmalee's village in search of a site to build their new hotel. Even though they had developed feelings for each other, Praveen's family doesn't accept their relationship. Meanwhile, Ranmalee comes across a photographer who's a friend of a leading entrepreneur (Sapumal) in the music industry and he helps her join Sapumal's dancing troupe. Ranmalee becomes very famous with her debut productions and Sapumal catches feelings for her. Ranmalee couldn't say "no" to her boss, but she's puzzled with the vibes from the relationship with Praveen.
Pori
Pooja
Hari (Jeeva) is an unemployed youth who runs a pavement book shop in Tripiclane area. His father (Nagesh) an upright retired school teacher buys him a shop in a building with his PF money. He names it “Periyar Bookshop” and runs it with friend Karunas. Meanwhile he constantly bumps into Pooja (Pooja), a television reporter and a love-hate relationship happens! However, one day a Malaysian based businessman (Seeman) comes and evicts him from the shop claiming that the place belongs to him. Hari discovers that his father was cheated by a land mafia gang which specializes in forged documents and is hand-in-glove with revenue officials. Hari decides to take the gauntlet and unveil the evil forces behind those property grabbers.
Panthayakozhi
Chempakam
Nandagopal lives with his mother and mute sister Maya at the mercy of his uncle. They come to know their late father bought a bungalow in Kalimuthupalayam, Tamil Nadu. Nandagopal go there to sell the property in order to get over their financial difficulties. But it's not easy to sell the bungalow because Nachiappa Gounder, the villain, refuses to vacate the house. In the meanwhile the Nandu falls in love with Chembakam. This matter creates other problems...
Thagapansamy
The film begins with Kadhirvel (Prashanth), a do-gooder going all out to get water for his village. With monsoon repeatedly failing, his village reels under drought and Prashanth runs from pillar to post to get a well dug in the village. He manages to bring Shanmugham (Mahadevan), a water-divining expert to dig a well in the village. Shanmugham along with his wife and daughter Marikozhundhu (Pooja) come to the village. Unfortunately a freak mishap kills Shanmugham and the villagers' search for water continues.
Anjalika - අංජලීකා
Anjalika / Uttara
A young man named Thivanka returns home to Sri Lanka from England to fall in love with a village girl named Anjalika. This proves to be problematic for Thivanka, as Anjalika is the daughter of a plantation caretaker employed by Thivanka's father. Thivanka's childhood friend, Kavya is in love with Thivanka and wants to marry him. The inevitable clash of rich and poor ends in the kidnapping and subsequent death of Anjalika.
Thambi
Archana
A man cannot tolerate injustice and opposes it in any form; this earns him the wrath of a local goon, who plans to get rid of him at all costs.
Pattiyal
Sandhya
Two contract killers, who wish to leave the crime world, are betrayed by their boss.
Ullam Ketkumae
Irene
A friendship between college friends Shyam, Priya and Pooja suffers when Shyam confesses his love for Priya, leaving Pooja, who also loves him, heartbroken.
Jithan
Priya
A girl breaks up with her lover after a rich guy proposes marriage to her. The lover gets the power of invisibility due to an accident; he uses this to hurt his rival, play tricks on people and even commit crime.
Attagasam
Sapna
The movie begins with Ajith, a driving instructor leading a happy life with his mother Sujatha. She hides from him the truth that his father, Nizhalgal Ravi, was murdered by a dadha, Babu Anthony. The mother much against the boy’s wish packs off Ajith’s twin brother with a family who offer to adopt him, who had been witness to the murderer from a close quarter, to a distant town. He escapes from the family and goes to Tuticorin and grows to become a gangster there. When the younger Ajith visits Tuticorin, he comes across his elder brother. Seizing the opportunity, the elder brother kidnaps the younger one and decides to go as the driving instructor to Chennai. Initially, he plans to take revenge on his mother for packing him off from their house at a very young age. He hurts her at every step and even plans to sell off all their property.
Jay Jay
Seema
Jagan and Jamuna spend all day chatting on their first meeting. Jamuna puts down her details on a 100 rupee note declaring that if the note comes back to Jagan, then they are destined to meet.