Ravi Shankar Raju Bhupatiraju is born to Raj Gopal Raju and Rajya Lakshmi couple in Jaggampeta, a small village in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India. His father was a pharmacist and his mother was a house wife. He also has two younger brothers – Bharath and Raghu who were also small time actors.

Ravi Teja studied in various place of North India like Jaipur, Delhi, Mumbai, Bhopal as his father worked in different places. Finally his family settled in Vijayawada. Ravi Teja pursued his Bachelor’s degree in Arts at Siddhartha Degree College.

Ravi Teja was married to Kalyani in 2002. They have two children - Mokshadha and Mahadhan.

Ravi Teja desired to act since his childhood. He moved to Chennai to try his luck. Gunasekhar and YVS Chowdary are his roommates in Chennai. He started his career with small roles like Karthavyam, Chaitanya and Aaj Ka Goonda Raj. He also simultaneously worked as assistant director for Telugu and Hindi films like Prathibandh, Aaj Ka Goondaraj, Criminal and Ninne Pelladutha. Krishna Vamsi casted him in a crucial role in Sindhuram and it was a turning point in his acting career. Later, he did significant roles in Seetha Rama Raju, Padutha Teeyaga, Manasichhi Choodu and Premaku Velayara.

His first film in the lead role is Srinu Vaitla’s Nee Kosam which later won Silver Nandi Award. Nandi Jury awarded him with ‘Best Actor – Jury’ award for his excellent action in the movie. But the movie did not bring him any immediate luck. He went on doing important roles in movies like Samudram, Annayya and Budget Padmanabham. He also acted in several comedy multi-starrer films such as Kshemanga Velli Labanga Randi, Tirumala Tirupathi Venkatesa, Sakuntumba Sapari Vare Sametham etc.

2001 – 2002: These two years were major milestones in Ravi Teja’s career. Avunu Valliddaru Ishtapaddaru directed by Vamsi brought him his first break as solo hero. Later on his association with Puri Jagannadh can be termed as fate changing. He has two back to back releases under the direction of Puri, Itlu Sravani Subrahmanyam and Idiot. While Itlu Sravani Subrahmanyam established him as actor, Idiot brought him super stardom.

The actor got elevated to the status of a star with Idiot and there is no looking back for him. He went on doing films one after the other. The major hits to Ravi Teja from then to 2005 are – Puri’s Amma Nanna O Tamilammayi, Krishna Vamsi’s Khadgam, Srinu Vaitla’s Venky and Boyapati Srinu’s Bhadra. There are also many flops during this phase too but his commercial range was so great that even flops managed to bag good amounts. This made him dearer to producers.

2006 was a significant year in Ravi Teja’s career. The year saw the biggest hit of Ravi Teja’s career, Vikramarkudu directed by SS Rajamouli. But he also had two bitter flops in the same year in Khatarnak and Shock. However, he came back hard by delivering two hits in the next 2 years – Dubai Seenu and Krishna. His next two movies – Baladur and Neninthe flopped bitterly. Ravi Teja is back in 2009 with Surender Reddy’s Kick. The movie released in the summer of that year and went on to become the biggest hit in the actor’s career surpassing Vikramarkudu collections. His next two releases, Anjaneyulu and Shambo Siva Shambo were also failures and they were followed by super hits like Don Seenu (2010) and Mirapakay (2011).

Bad Phase and comeback: After Mirapakaay, Ravi Teja had 6 releases – Dongala Muta, Veera, Nippu, Daruvu, Devudu Chesina Manushulu and Sarocharu. All these movies failed miserably at the box office and the actor’s market almost depleted. When everyone started to write him off, he came back with a bang with Balupu (2013). The movie was a big hit and is currently the biggest grosser in the actor’s career. He later followed it by Power which was again a big hit.

• Kick-2 directed by Surender Reddy.
• Bengal Tiger directed by Sampath Nandi – Announced.