MEERA JASMINE-THE SOUTH HEROINE SANS PAR

Jasmine Mary Josephy - or more popularly known as Meera Jasmine was born on 15 February 1984. Born and brought up in Kuttappuzha, Thiruvalla, Kerala. She has not family background neither she is from the family of actors! She was not a model or participated in beauty pageants like Trisha or Namitha. She was not known to anybody until she was introduced by Lohithadas in Malayalam movie Soothradharan in 2001. Though film bombed, but she got noticed.

She accepted movies offers despite opposition from her father. Meera joined the film industry without much expectation. Meera was ready to return to her studies if her films fails. Despite her debut failure she was noticed and offered movies after Soothradharan. And she went to receive National Award - apart from 4 Filmfare Awards - Best Female Debut (Run, Tamil) 2002, Best Actress (Malayalam) in 2003, 2006 and 2008.

Meera also received several Kerala State Awards. She has acted in a dozen Malayalam films. She is simple, but good looking actress. Never acted in glamour roles! Nation Award for Best Actress was given to her for excellent portrayal of a 15-year-old Muslim girl married to an older man. She was pitted against contenders like Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen. She has paired against all big stars in Malayalam - Mohanlal, Dileep, Mammootty etc.

She gave some successful Tamil movies as well. After the success of Run in 2002, she worked with Mani Ratnman's Aayudha Ezhuthu. Mercury Pookkal was another successful movie. She has acted with Dhanush, Vijayakant, Bharath.

She is famous in Telugu film industry too. Her debut film was dubbed from Tamil, Run. Later in 2004 she gave some good films in Telugu as "Ammayi Bagundi" and "Gudumba Shankar". She also worked in Kannada film industry... co-starring with Puneet Rajkumar in Maurya. Her another Kannada film Arrasu is also a hit. Bhadra (Telugu) with Ravi Teja is the biggest hit in Telugu. Her other Telugu films are Raraju, Maharadhi, Yamagola Malli Modalaindi, Gorintaku and Maa Aayana Chantipilladu, in which she is paired for a second time with Sivaji.

She is in love with U. Rajesh, a mandolin artist and they planning to marry soon.

She draw ire from devotees of Lord Raja Rajeshwara Temple in Kerala when she prayed and bowed to the Lord. Here non-Hindus are prohibited. The controversy sparked off a protest by devotees. Later she paid ten thousand as penalty to temple authorities