The acting bug bit Sushanth when he is pursuing his B.E. second year and he revealed it to his mother. She asked him to complete his education first which he did. Once he is in India, he joined in a 4 months acting course at Kreating Charakters Training school, Mumbai along with his cousin Naga Chaitanya.
His acting debut happened in 2008 with Kalidasu in which he paired up with Tamannah. The film was directed by a first timer, G. Ravicharan Reddy. Chintalapudi Srinivasa Rao and Naga Suseela (Sushanth's mother) jointly produced it. Annapurna Studios presented the movie. Though, the movie went off well initially, it ended as a flop finally.
His second movie, Current also did not bring him a proud result. The movie was directed by another debutant, Sai Pratap. Sneha Ullal paired up with him in this film.
After two back to back failures, Sushanth took a break for more than 3 years and came back with Adda directed by another debutant, Sai Karthik. Thanks to the free space at the box office, the movie did reasonably well in some areas of the state and is currently the biggest grosser in the actor’s career.