Srinivasa Sarja (born 15 August 1962), better known by his stage name Action King Arjun, is an Indian actor, producer, and director who works predominantly in Tamil cinema. He has mainly acted in Tamil cinema films in addition to Telugu cinema and Kannada cinema films as well as a few Malayalam cinema and Hindi cinema films. Referred to by the media and his fans as "Action King" for his roles in , Arjun has acted in more than 160 films, most of them being lead roles. He is one of few South Indian actors to attract fan following from multiple states of India. He has directed 12 films and also produced and distributed a number of films.
In 1993, he starred in S. Shankar's blockbuster Gentleman which opened to positive reviews, while Arjun went on to win the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor. During this time, he starred in hits such as Jai Hind (1994), Karnaa (1995), and the action thriller film Kurudhipunal (1995), for which Arjun won acclaim for his role while the film became India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. In 1999, he starred in the political action-thriller, Mudhalvan, which earned him for his role as well as numerous other nominations. He was then featured in Vasanth's romantic drama film Rhythm, where he played a photographer, who eventually falls in love with a widow. Featuring a popular soundtrack and opening to positive reviews, Rhythm also became a commercial success.
His appearances in Kannada and Telugu films include Sri Manjunatha (2001) and Hanuman Junction (2001), respectively. He won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor for his work in the film. The multilingual film Abhimanyu (2014) won the Karnataka State Film Award for Second Best Film.
Arjun married Niveditha Arjun in 1988, a former actress who has appeared in the 1986 Kannada film Ratha Sapthami under the stage name of Asha Rani. Kannada actor Rajesh is his father-in-law. He has two daughters, Aishwarya and Anjana. Aishwarya made her acting debut in 2013 with Pattathu Yaanai. She was nominated for the SIIMA Award for Best Debutant Actress Kannada for the bilingual film Prema Baraha (2018). Official website She married Umapathy Ramaiah on 10 June 2024 in an intimate ceremony at Arjun's Sri Yoga Anjaneyar Temple in Gerugambakkam, Chennai.
Arjun had one elder brother Kishore Sarja, who directed Kannada films. His nephews Chiranjeevi Sarja and Dhruva Sarja are Kannada actors. Bharat Sarja, made his acting debut in 2014 with Veera Pulikeshi.
Arjun is an ardent devotee of Hanuman. He is building the Hanuman temple in the outskirts of Chennai. A 35-foot statue of the Lord Anjaneya was sculpted exclusively for the temple; the statue is in a seated posture and weighs around 140 tonnes. The single-stone statue is 35 feet high, 12 feet wide and 7 feet thick.
Arjun was honoured with an honorary doctorate by Dr. M.G.R. Medical University in November 2024.
His career as an actor began to take off in the mid-1980s and he sometimes worked for up to seven shifts in a day to keep up with the films he had committed to do. In Telugu, he established himself as a bankable actor with roles in films such as Naga Devatha (1986), Cowboy No. 1 (1986), Konaseema Kurradu (1986) and Manavadostunnadu (1987). In Tamil, his successful films during the period included Shankar Guru (1987), Thaimel Aanai (1988), Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu (1989), Sonthakkaran (1989), Thangaikku Oru Thalattu (1990) and Thanga Thamaraigal (1991).
In the late 1990s, after a series of action films, including Sengottai (1996) and Thaayin Manikodi (1998), he teamed up again with Shankar in the political drama film Mudhalvan (1999). Portraying an ambitious TV journalist who receives the opportunity to become the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for a day, Arjun offered bulk dates for filming the project to Shankar. The film subsequently won positive reviews with Arjun described as having "acquitted himself with aplomb in the challenging role".
Arjun then briefly experimented in softer roles, portraying critically acclaimed characters of businessman with "shades of grey" in Prabhu Solomon's Kannodu Kanbathellam (1999) and as an energetic civil service officer in Vaanavil (2000). He then featured in Vasanth's romantic drama film Rhythm (2000), where he played a widower and a professional photographer, who eventually falls in love with a widow. Featuring a popular soundtrack and opening to positive reviews, Rhythm also became a commercial success, with a critic noting "Arjun is as polished as ever" and adding "who would have conceived this idea that the "action king" could attempt a soft-natured role of this kind". He carried on with a lighter theme in his next directorial venture, the love story Vedham (2001), while he ventured into Telugu cinema again by appearing in Raja's Hanuman Junction (2001) and as a Hindu devotee in Sri Manjunatha (2001).
Despite not achieving any significant hit films in the 2000s, producers often considered Arjun as a "minimum guarantee" actor and felt his sizable fan following would help recover money even through the Telugu dubbed versions of his Tamil films. In a rare experimental film for him in the decade, he portrayed the role of the Hindu deity Hanuman in Krishna Vamsi's devotional film Sri Anjaneyam (2004) and worked on the film without taking remuneration as a self-confessed worshipper of the deity.
Arjun collaborated with Mani Ratnam with Kadal (2013), in which the actor portrayed a negative role of a smuggler in coastal Tamil Nadu. While the film opened to mixed reviews and became a box office failure, Arjun won rave reviews for his portrayal with Sify.com noting Arjun is "deliciously despicable in his career's most memorable negative role" and The Hindu labelling him as "brilliant". He then won acclaim for his portrayal of a real-life police officer K. Vijay Kumar in the Kannada film Attahasa (2013), the biopic of notorious forest brigand Veerappan, as well as for his role of a paralysed swimming coach in Vasanth's romance film, Moondru Per Moondru Kadal (2013).
His directorial venture, Jai Hind 2 (2014) contained a message about the declining state of the Indian education system. The film became a box office success in Kannada, while the Tamil and Telugu versions did not perform well at the box office. In 2016, he played a realistic police officer in Bharathiraja's critically acclaimed Final Cut of Director (dubbed in Tamil as Bommalattam), where a reviewer felt his "showcase of the soft, subtle yet unrelenting cop was noteworthy". In 2017, he appeared in his 150th film Nibunan, an action thriller where he played a police officer hunting a serial killer. The film won positive reviews, with a critic noting that Arjun "looks stylish and suave as the fit and honest officer, and excels in a couple of action blocks he gets". He then directed a bilingual film titled Prema Baraha (2018) starring his daughter Aishwarya Arjun in the leading role While, the Kannada version performed well, the Tamil version, Sollividava, went unnoticed at the box office. He starred in the Telugu films Lie (2017) and Naa Peru Surya (2018). Irumbu Thirai (2018) showed a different Arjun to the audience. Kolaigaran (2019) was also a performance-oriented film. Arjun Sarja's performance as Karna is another highlight of the movie Kurukshetra (2019).
He played the role of a warrior called Anandan in the epic historical action Malayalam film, (2021) directed by Priyadarshan. His was next roped in to play the role of one of the antagonists in the Vijay starrer Leo (2023), directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, earning him praise from critics for this role as well. He was cast in the Ajith Kumar starrer Vidaamuyarchi (2025) as the antagonist directed by Magizh Thirumeni.
After Arjun's defamation case was filed, Sruthi filed a sexual harassment case with the police with a new set of stories. The Bangalore Police immediately investigated this case and they submitted their report also. In their report, they said there was "no evidence" in favour of her. In this investigation, all crew members of this film said there was no such incident that happened on the sets and director Arun Vaidyanathan who was named as the eye-witness in the case, said Arjun Sarja is a nice person. The romantic scene script was already finalized before the shooting. According to the director, Arjun Sarja had asked the filmmaker to reduce the romantic scenes in the movie. He had also said that Arjun Sarja and Sruthi Hariharan were good friends and he never noticed Arjun Sarja misbehaving with Sruthi on the sets. It was eventually proved to be a false case.
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