Aishwarya Lekshmi, the doctor-turned-actress who walked out on the algorithm

Aishwarya Lekshmi

Photo: Keerikkadanjose / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Born	September 6, 1991 Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
Occupation	Actress
Known for	Ponniyin Selvan: Part I, Ponniyin Selvan: Part II, Jagame Thandhiram
Awards	Filmfare · SIIMA Critics · SIIMA · Kerala Film Critics Association · Tamil Nadu State Film

In #Love, the Tamil series now streaming on Netflix, Aishwarya Lekshmi plays Tara, the founder of a dating app called FOUND that matches people on compatibility rather than chemistry, and who agrees to test that theory against a rival entrepreneur played by Arjun Das. The part carries an irony the show never points at. The woman cast as an evangelist for the algorithm is one of the few South Indian stars who switched off her own feed, publicly and on purpose, and said so in writing: “I’m taking the risk of being forgotten.”

That sentence is the clearest statement of how Lekshmi has run a career she says she “never planned.” She came to the screen with a medical degree in her pocket and a modelling portfolio behind her, and she has spent the years since moving between Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu cinema with a speed that has made her hard to pin to any one industry, or any one kind of role.

She grew up in Thiruvananthapuram, the Kerala capital where she was born, and went to school at Holy Angel’s Convent there and later at Sacred Heart Convent in Angamaly. She studied medicine at the Sree Narayana Institute of Medical Sciences in Ernakulam and completed her MBBS, followed by an internship at the same institute. In parallel she had been modelling since 2014, turning up on the covers of Vanitha and FWD Life and in campaigns for Kerala jewellers and silk houses. Acting arrived almost by accident: she auditioned for Althaf Salim’s comedy-drama Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela, starring Nivin Pauly, and was cast in a prominent role. The film, released in 2017, the same year she finished her degree, won her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut in the South.

It was her second film that made people take notice. In Aashiq Abu’s Mayaanadhi, a romantic thriller opposite Tovino Thomas, she played Aparna, known as Appu, an aspiring actress caught between ambition and a lover on the run. Neelima Mohan of The News Minute called her the “heart and soul” of the film, and Film Companion later placed the performance on its list of the 100 greatest of the decade in Indian cinema. It also brought her the SIIMA Critics Award for Best Actress in Malayalam and the Kerala Film Critics Association award for second best actress. A year later she held her own beside Fahadh Faasil in Amal Neerad’s Varathan, a box-office success that earned her the SIIMA Award for Best Actress in Malayalam.

From there the map widened. She made her Tamil debut opposite Vishal in Sundar C’s Action, then joined Dhanush in Karthik Subbaraj’s gangster film Jagame Thandhiram, which went straight to Netflix. The scale changed with Mani Ratnam’s two-part adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s historical novel, in which she played Poonguzhali, the headstrong boatwoman of the novel. Ponniyin Selvan: Part I became one of the highest-grossing Tamil films ever made, and she returned for Ponniyin Selvan: Part II. In the same stretch she co-produced Gargi, the courtroom drama led by Sai Pallavi, appearing in it only in a cameo; the film later won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film. She took her first Telugu leading roles too, most notably in Ammu, where she played a woman trapped in an abusive marriage, a performance Hindustan Times described as one of her best.

The numbers from that peak also tell a less flattering story. In 2022 alone she had nine releases, and only three of them, Gargi, Ponniyin Selvan: Part I and the wrestling comedy Gatta Kusthi, made money. The roles that won her the warmest reviews, the battered wife in Ammu, the orphan in Kumari, the teacher in Archana 31 Not Out, were heavy ones, and the bigger productions that followed did not always know what to do with her. In Maaman, a hit opposite Soori, Avinash Ramachandran of Cinema Express found her “terrific in a role that is quite layered” yet “never given the breathing space” to become more. In Mani Ratnam’s Thug Life, with Kamal Haasan and Silambarasan, she was a doctor and a long-lost sister in a crowded film that underperformed. Lekshmi herself has been blunt about the pattern, arguing that writers lean on sexual assault as “the central conflict” for women characters and that what she wants is “a mixed bag.”

The decision to leave Instagram belongs to the same argument. In a note she posted as she stepped away, she wrote that she had long believed social media was “much needed to keep me in the game,” and that instead “it has taken away every original thought from me, affected my vocabulary and language, and made even the simplest pleasures joyless.” She has since said in interviews that her managers and PR team urged her to return, warning that staying away could hurt her earnings, and that she has no plans to return. Her own team, in other words, put a price on the decision, and she paid it.

So far the bet is holding. Her first release of 2026 was Gatta Kusthi 2, in which she returned as the wrestler Keerthi opposite Vishnu Vishal; it grossed about 45.5 crore rupees worldwide, according to Pinkvilla, the biggest result of his career. In September she appeared in Safar Sanal’s Malayalam drama Aasha as the daughter of Urvashi’s title character, a smaller part that Vivek Santhosh of The New Indian Express said still made “a noticeable impression.” Then came #Love, directed by Balaji Mohan and produced by Soundarya Rajinikanth, her first lead in a streaming series. Its six episodes premiered on Netflix on October 2, 2026, in Tamil with Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam versions. Reviews have been mixed about the writing and kinder about her: Scroll argued that the leads’ chemistry “smoothens out the creases.” She has explained the choice plainly, saying she took it because she had been “doing too many serious projects.”

What comes next leans away from the feed and toward the uniform and the village. She is shooting a Tamil police drama for the debut director Aiswarya Aanand, made with an all-women crew, in which she plays an officer she describes as a normal person who happens to wear the badge. And she is Vasantha in Sambarala Yeti Gattu, Rohith KP’s Telugu period drama opposite Sai Durgha Tej set in Rayalaseema, which is dated for January 12, 2027. If either lands, it will be the clearest proof yet that an actress can stay in the conversation without posting a word of it.

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Tags: actors, actresses, #Love, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Gatta Kusthi 2, Mani Ratnam

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