Pooja (born 25 June 1981 as Pooja Gautami Umashankar in Sri Lanka) is an actress in Kollywood and the Sinhala film industry. She has a Masters Degree in Business & Management.

She was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, Netru, Indru, Naalai (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow).

Early life

Her mother is a Sri Lankan Sinhalese and her father is Tamil. The languages she can speak are Tamil, Kannada and English. She went to school and college in Bangalore, Baldwin's and Mount Carmel College respectively.

Career

Her debut film was Ullam Ketkumae (Tamil) with Arya, Laila Mehdin, Shaam and Asin Thottumkal which was directed by the late Jeeva. It wasn't released until her second and third films Jay Jay and Attagasam released in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

She is currently busy with the most awaited NAAN KADAVUL movie which is directed by veteran director Bala, Arya is once again her co-star in this movie.

Pooja who is acting in Naan Kadavul opposite Arya is all excited about her movie. She adds that Naan Kadavul would be a turning point in her career and she will portray a never seen before role in this movie. She feels that her role in Naan Kadavul will be well praised. In order to concentrate on her role in Naan Kadavul Pooja has lost a lot of other oppurtunities.

She had to lose oppurtunities for three Tamil movies and also give up one oppurtunity in a Sinhalese movie. She has promised the Sinhalese production company that she will act in their next movie after June/July.

She has been making frequent visits to Sri-Lanka since her grandmother is ill and hence has been unavailable for comment so far. But because of this media has made out that she has a lot of head weight. This is not true adds this beautiful actress.

Shocking News

Pooja had a shocking experience that thrilled her recently as follows:

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE) aircraft bombed two key installations close to capital Colombo early Sunday in retaliation for military air raids on their territory. Two aircrafts carried out the attacks on oil storage facilities near Colombo, the LTTE spokesman said. He said two 'squadrons' were dispatched after Sri Lankan Air Force jets had bombed targets in Kilinochchi in the north where the rebels have their headquarters. One of the installations is the state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corporation's storage facility in Kolonnawa while the other belongs to Shell in Muturajawela, close to Colombo.

Actress Pooja, who is basically a sri lankan, is now on her vacation to her home town. She was spending the time with her grandfather and grandmother when the attack happened. Her home was located around 1K.M near the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation's storage and during that time she felt the quake of the attack at her home. She is still under the shock about the attack happened nearer to her home.