taylor lautner: SHRUTI HAASAN

BIOGRAPHY AND CAREER

Shruti Haasan born 28 January 1986 is an Indian actress and singer, who has appeared in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films.

Shruti Rajalakshmi Haasan was born to actors Kamal Haasan and Sarika in Chennai, India.She also has a younger sister named Akshara, who represents India nationally for Ballroom Latin dancing.Haasan studied at Abacus in Chennai, until 10th grade, when she moved to Mumbai to study psychology at St Andrew’s College.

Later Haasan shifted her focus to cinema and music, and eventually travelled to the USA to continue to learn music at the Musicians Institute in California, before returning to Chennai.

Singing
Shruti Haasan sang her first song aged just six in her father's Thevar Magan in the composition of Ilaiyaraaja. Later while pursuing her studies in school, Haasan made her singing debut in the Hindi language film, Chachi 420, singing a duet performing for the voice of a child, with her father Kamal Haasan, who also directed the film. Shruti Haasan's second song came in Hey Ram, where she sang the bilingual versions of the title theme, Rama Rama with her father, in Hindi and in Tamil. The album from Ilayaraaja, which was critically praised, won Haasan accolades for her efforts with reviewers, Screen India praising that she "has the makings of a good singer, and with some training she should go great guns".

Shruti Haasan had the opportunity to sing with veteran singer K J Yesudas for the movie 'En Mana Vaanil' under Ilaiyaraaja's music. The song was 'Roattorap paattuch chaththam'. The movie was released in 2002. She has sung in a Tamil film, for Gautham Menon's Vaaranam Aayiram under the composition of Harris Jayaraj. As of November 2008, Haasan is also midway through her untitled debut album, which she has composed, written and sung, and is set for release in mid-2009.A further song was recorded under her voice for her Hindi film, Luck.

In September 2010, Haasan collaborated with Dave Kushner for the film, Hisss. Whilst Kushner composed the track, Shruti Haasan wrote the lyrics, sang and also appears in a promotional video for the film, singing the song.

Acting
Shruti Haasan at a TeachAIDS recording session in Mumbai in 2010.

After pursuing a career in singing Shruti Haasan also entered into modelling. She started by starring appearing in the Frappe! magazine version of September 2007, since then she has gone on to appear in Verve.

In 2000, Haasan made her cinematic debut in the Tamil and Hindi bilingual film, Hey Ram, directed by her father. She made a cameo appearance as the daughter of Vallabhai Patel in the biopic of Mahatma Gandhi. Her recent Bollywood movie opposite Imran Khan, "Luck" was yet another box office disaster. However, her acting skills are appreciated by a large section of the audience.

After rejecting prominent film offers, most notably the lead role in Venkat Prabhu's Saroja, reports suggested in late 2007 that Haasan was set to make her full debut as a heroine in 2008 with a movie opposite Madhavan directed by Nishikanth Kamath. Despite Madhavan admitting that the news "was premature", she signed up to the film, which was titled, Endrendrum Punnagai, only to be stalled prior to production.Eventually Haasan signed up to Soham Shah's Luck opposite Imran Khan, a Bollywood film. However, despite the film gathering much publicity prior to release, it became a critical and commercial flop. In mid 2010, Shruti was signed by A. R. Murugadoss to star opposite Surya Sivakumar in his next film 7aam Arivu, and the film's shoot began in June.She made her Telugu debut in January 2011, acting opposite Siddharth in the fantasy adventure film Anaganaga O Dheerudu directed by Prakash Kovelamudi and co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures.

She has also given her voice to an HIV/AIDS education animated software tutorial created by the nonprofit organization TeachAIDS.

Music composing
After much speculation, Shruti Haasan is the music composer of the Tamil film Unnaipol Oruvan which released in 2009, with lead role played by her father Kamal Haasan who is also co-producer of the movie under Rajkamal International. The bilingual, is a remake of the successful Hindi film, A Wednesday!, but the soundtracks of both the projects are entirely separate. Apart from this, Shruthi Hassan is also the vocalist of an alternative rock band The Extramentals.

FILMOGRAPHY