Tamannaah Bhatia was born on 21 December 1989 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, to Santhosh and Rajani Bhatia and she has an elder brother, Anand. Her father is a diamond merchant. She is of Sindhi descent.[2] She did her schooling in Maneckji Cooper Educational Trust School, Juhu, Mumbai. She later changed her screen name for numerological reasons, varying it slightly to Tamannaah.[3]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-4"[4] She has been working since the age of 13, when she was spotted at her schools annual day function and offered a lead role, which she took up, and then also became a part of Mumbai's Prithvi Theatre for a year. She also appeared in Abhijeet sawant's album song "Lafzo main" from the album Aapka Abhijeet which was released in the year 2005.[5]

Tamannaah made her acting debut in 2005 at the age of 15, playing the female lead in Chand Sa Roshan Chehra which was a commercial failure at the box office.[6] The same year, she made her debut in Telugu cinema with Sri and in Tamil cinema with Kedi in 2006. Though both of them were commercial failures,[6] her performance in the latter fetched her critical acclaim. IndiaGlitz in ints review called Tamannaah as the "real scene-stealer" and stated that she "walks away with all honors", adding that her characters have shades of the characters played by Vijayashanti in Mannan (1992) and Ramya Krishnan in Padayappa (1999).[7]Her first release of 2007 was Shakti Chidambaram's Viyabari in which she played the role of a journalist who wants to write an article about a successful entrepreneur played by S. J. Suryah. The film opened to negative reviews and flopped at the box office,[8] but Tamannaah received praise for her performance.[9] She got her breakthrough with Sekhar Kammula's Happy Days and Balaji Sakthivel's Kalloori, both of them featuring Tamannaah as a college student. She won critical acclaim for her performances in both the films.[10] The commercial success of Happy Days and Kalloori established her career as an actress in both Telugu and Tamil films.[11] Her performance in the latter earned her a nomination at the 56th Filmfare Awards South in the Best Tamil Actress category.[12]Her first release of 2008 was the Telugu film Kalidasu directed by debutante G. Ravicharan Reddy. She was paired with debutante Sushanth, the grandson of actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao.[10] Upon release, the film opened to moderate reviews and critics felt that she looked good and bery romantic but had less scope to perform.[13]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-14"[14]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-15"[15] The film was an average grosser at the box office.[16] She later made a cameo appearance in the Telugu film Ready followed by another cameo appearance in the Telugu - Tamil bilingual Ninna Nedu Repu titled Netru Indru Naalai in Tamil.[17]2009 2010[edit]Tamannaah's first release of 2009 was the Tamil film Padikkadavan directed by Suraj co-staring Dhanush which was named after Rajinikanth's 1985 film of the same name. The film received mixed reviews from critics but Tamannaah's performance in a limited role won praise.[18]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-19"[19] Padikkadavan however became a commercial success.[20] Her next release was the Telugu film Konchem Ishtam Konchem Kashtam directed by Kishore Kumar Pardasany co-starring Siddharth. The film received positive reviews from critics and she received critical acclaim for her performance,[21]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-22"[22] earning a nomination at the 57th Filmfare Awards South in the Best Telugu Actress category.[23] The film however was an average grosser at the box office.[24] Her next release, K. V. Anand's Ayan, co-starring Suriya became the only major commercially successful Tamil film of the year.[25]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-26"[26]She later appeared in Gandhi Krishna's Ananda Thandavam which was based on the novel Pirivom Santhippom serialised by Sujatha Rangarajan. She was paired with Siddharth Venugopal in the film marking the latter's debut.[27] The film opened to negative reviews,[28]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-29"[29] and was her only commercial failure in 2009.[30] However Tamannaah's performance was critically acclaimed. Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com stated that Tamannaah's "would-be innocence when she's playing up to Sidharth, and slight cunning when she chooses Radhakrishnan is perfect" adding that she brought her character Madhumitha "to life, an alluring mix of child and woman; irritating, sly, yet arousing your sympathy in the climax".[31]Tamannaah later appeared in R. Kannan's Kanden Kadhalai, the official remake of Jab We Met (2007) co-starring Bharath and her voice was dubbed by playback singer Chinmayi.[32] Kanden Kadhalai opened to decent feedback from critics and Tamannaah's performance won praise from them.[33]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-34"[34] A reviewer from Sify stated, "Funny and full of life, it is Tamannaah who is the heart and soul of this love story. She has come up with a live wire performance and the magic of the film lies in her performance", adding that no actress in Tamil cinema could play that role better than her though she did not look like a Thevar girl hailing from Theni.[35] Her performance in the film earned her a nomination at the 57th Filmfare Awards South in the Best Tamil Actress category, making her the only actress to earn two nominations in two different languages at that event.[23] She also won the South Scope award for the same.[36] During this phase, she was established as an undisputed top actress in Tamil cinema.[2]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-cheers-30"[30]Tamannaah's first release of 2010 was N. Linguswamy's Paiyaa co-starring Karthi which was a Tamil road movie. The film opened to positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success.[37] She earned a nomination each at the 58th Filmfare Awards South and 5th Vijay Awards in the Best Tamil Actress category.[38]HYPERLINK \l "cite_note-39"[39] Her other two releases of 2010 were S. P. Rajkumar's Sura co-starring Vijay and M. Raja's Thillalangadi co-starring Jayam Ravi, the former being Vijay's 50th film as an actor[40] and the latter being the official remake of Surender Reddy's Kick (2009).[41] Both the films flopped at the box office.[42