Akhil Akkineni, who made his lead role debut with the Telugu film Akhil (2015), is an Indian actor predominantly active in Telugu cinema. This movie itself won him the Filmfare Best Debut Actor Award. He started off in 1995 as a child artist with Sisindri that bagged him the Filmfare Best Child Actor Award.

Early life
Akhil was born in California, United States, to leading actors Nagarjuna and Amala. He soon moved to Hyderabad, India when he was just a few months old. He studied at Chaitanya Vidyalaya, and then went to Australia for two years. He then came back to Hyderabad to study at the Oakridge International School. He is the grandson of actor Nageswara Rao. Akhil was passionate about acting since a young age and decided to pursue a career in it. When he was 16 years old, he joined the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York for an acting course. Even though his father wanted him to pursue business education, Akhil was quite clear about his goals and took to pursue his passion right away.

Personal life
Akhil was dating Shriya Bhupal, granddaughter of tycoon GVK Reddy, for two years and they got engaged in a private ceremony in 2016. The couple were going to tie the knot in 2017 but had a huge fight at the Hyderabad airport, post which they called off the wedding.

Movie career
Akhil was just one year old when he debuted in the industry with the Telugu comedy film Sisindri in 1995, which starred his real life father Akkineni Nagarjuna. Directed by Shiva Nageswara Rao, Akhil played the role of Sisindri, a child who gets kidnapped from his home. The concept of the movie is based on the Hollywood film Baby`s Day Out (1994). For his role in the film, he won the Filmfare Best Child Actor. After 19 years, he went on to make a cameo appearance in director Vikram Kumar`s fantasy drama Manam in 2014. Produced by The Akkineni family, the movie starred Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Akkineni Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in the lead roles.

Akhil`s lead role debut came in 2015 with the Telugu fantasy drama film Akhil, under the direction of V. V. Vinayak. The actor plays the role of a young and carefree orphan Akhil in the movie, opposite Sayesha Saigal as the female lead. For the movie, Akhil took up a stunt workshop with his personal trainer Kicha and also attended workshops in Thailand for two months. Even though the movie only managed to get mixed reviews and turned out to be a disaster at the box office, Akhil won the Filmfare Best Debut Actor for his performance in the movie. A year later, the actor made a cameo appearance in the romantic action film Aatadukundam Raa (2016), directed by G. Nageswara Reddy.

In 2017, the actor made his second appearance in a starring role with the romantic action thriller Hello, where he was paired opposite debutante Kalyani Priyadarshan. The film was generally well-received by the critics and the audience alike, and went on to become a box office success. Following a one-year hiatus, Akhil starred alongside Nidhhi Agerwal in the romantic comedy Mr. Majnu (2019), which was directed by Venky Atluri. His other notable works include Most Eligible Bachelor (2021) and Agent (2023).