Rakul Preet Singh

Rakul Preet Singh at Mehboob Studio

Rakul Preet Singh, who said that she had always dreamt of being an actress, began her career in modelling at age 18 while she was still in college.[17] In 2009 she made her acting debut in the Kannada film, Gilli, a remake of Selvaraghavan's 7G Rainbow Colony.[18] She stated that she signed up the film "with the aim to earn a little extra pocket money" and that she was unaware "how big south Indian films were".[18] She won critical acclaim for her role in the film before returning to complete her degree and compete in the 2011 Femina Miss India pageant.[19] Apart from the People's Choice Miss Indiatimes, she won four subtitles at the pageant including Pantaloons Femina Miss Fresh Face, Femina Miss Talented, Femina Miss Beautiful Smile and Femina Miss Beautiful Eyes. [13]

She returned to films in 2011, featuring opposite Siddharth Rajkumar in Keratam which was released both in Telugu and Malayalam languages, though critics noted that "she got very little screen time".[20] The film was also made in Tamil simultaneously titled as "Yuvan" with the same cast but different director.[21] In 2012, she appeared in a supporting role in the Tamil film Thadaiyara Thaakka.[22]

In Jan 2013 she appeared in a Tamil film titled Puthagam. In November 2013 she was seen in Venkatadri Express in Telugu, the latter becoming a commercial success[23][24] and earning her first ever Best Actress nomination at the 61st Filmfare Awards South.[25]

In 2014, she debuted in a starring role in Bollywood with Divya Kumar's directorial debut Yaariyan,[26] after which her third Tamil film Yennamo Yedho released. By mid-2014, she was working on three Telugu films simultaneously,[27] which were directed by Sriwass,[28] G. Nageswara Reddy,[29] and Gopichand Malineni. Sriwass's Loukyam and G. Nageswara Reddy's Current Theega were her next releases. She received positive reviews for her performances in both films,[30][31] with 123telugu.com going on to claim that she was "slowly becoming a star actress".[32] She received her second Best Actress nomination at 62nd Filmfare Awards South. Her next released film was Pandaga Chesko in which she was starred opposite Ram Pothineni and directed by Gopichand Malineni.

Singh at an event in 2018

Rakul Preet Singh was then selected as the female lead in half-a-dozen, four of which are high-profile Telugu films: Surender Reddy's Kick 2 opposite Ravi Teja,[33] Srinu Vaitla's Bruce Lee opposite Ram Charan,[34] Sukumar's Nannaku Prematho opposite Jr. Ntr[35] and Boyapati Srinu's Sarrainodu opposite Allu Arjun.[36] She was greatly praised for her movie Nannaku Prematho as she dubbed first time ever for herself in this film[37] and earning her first ever Best Actress award at Jio SIIMA 2017. In January 2016 she signed the film Jaya Janaki Nayaka under the direction of Boyapati Srinu opposite Bellamkonda Sreenivas for which she charged ₹1.5 crore (US$210,000).[38] In February 2016 she signed Surender Reddy's Dhruva starring opposite Ram Charan for the second time.[39]

In early March 2016 she signed Gopichand Malineni's film Winner starring with Sai Dharam Tej for the first time.[40][41] In early July 2016, she signed to AR Murugadoss' bilingual film opposite to Mahesh Babu, titled Spyder.[42][43][44] In September 2016 she signed another Telugu film titled Rarandoi Veduka Chudham directed by Kalyan Krishna starring opposite Naga Chaitanya.[45] The movie was released on 26 May which was a huge blockbuster.[46] She later has received a lot of applause for her look and character as Bramaramba in Rarandoi Veduka Chudham.[47]

In Dec 2016, she signed her next film titled Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru to pair opposite Karthi.[48]

In early January 2018, she signed her next Tamil film opposite to Suriya under Selvaraghavan direction.[49] After a small sabbatical in Hindi films, she appeared in Neeraj Pandey's Aiyaary starring opposite Sidharth Malhotra, released in February.[50] In March 2018, she signed Tamil film starring opposite Karthi for the second time after the success of Theeran Adhigaaram Ondru.[51][52] In June 2018 she signed another Tamil film starring Sivakarthikeyan for the first time, which is a A. R Rahman musical film.

In 2019, Rakul Preet Singh appeared with Ajay Devgn and Tabu in Luv Ranjan's Bollywood romcom, De De Pyaar De, released in May 2019 and received positive reviews.[53] Her second release of 2019 was a Telugu romantic comedy film Manmadhudu 2, produced by Nagarjuna Akkineni and directed by Rahul Ravindran.[54]

As of August 2019, she has two upcoming films; Milap Milan Zaveri's action drama Marjaavaan, alongside Ritesh Deshmukh, Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria releasing on 2 October.[55] And, she will be appearing in Tamil vigilante-action film Indian 2, directed by S. Shankar, a sequel to the 1996 film Indian, for which filming began in August.[56]

She has an active franchise of three functional training gyms named Functional 45. Two of them are in Hyderabad located in Gachibowli and Kokapet and one in Visakhapatnam. She also bought a new apartment in Hyderabad of worth ₹3 crore (US$420,000) to stay with her family.[57][58]