Ramya Krishnan was born to a Telugu father Krishnan and Tamil mother Maaya on September 15, 1970 in Chennai. She is the niece of veteran Tamil comedian Cho Ramaswamy and trained in classical dance forms. Ramya started her acting career in 1984 at the age of 13 with the Malayalam film Neram Pularumbol featuring Mammootty and Mohanlal in the lead. A few years later, Ramya became one of the famous leading actresses of Telugu industry in the 1990s.