Murali is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Kannada cinema. After making his debut in 2003 in Chandra Chakori, he appeared in Kanti as the eponymous lead, a performance that won him the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor. He has since appeared in over 10 Kannada films and a film each in Telugu and Malayalam, all of which proved to be commercial failures. His performance in the 2014 Kannada film Ugramm received unanimous praise and emerged as a major success. His father S. A. Chinne Gowda was a film producer and brother Vijay Raghavendra, an actor. Actor Rajkumar was his uncle and actors Shiva Rajkumar and Puneeth Rajkumar his cousins. He married Vidya, his girlfriend and daughter of a hotelier, on 11 May 2008. They have a son and a daughter together.