A former member of celebrated theatre artist B.V. Karanth`s Rangayana Theatre Group, Raghu has made a name for himself in Kannada cinema as both a comedian and character actor. Since his film debut in the mid-1990s, the popular actor has appeared in over a hundred movies; winning two Karnataka State Film Awards, a Filmfare Award and two SIIMA Awards along the way besides several other honours. Raghu got his first major break when he essayed the role of an antagonist in the Kiccha Sudeep starrer Dhumm (2002), and subsequently rose to prominence when he won the State Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Mani (2003).

Over the years, the actor has given a number of memorable performances in characters of all different shades in movies like Cyanide (2006), Duniya (2007), Sanju Weds Geetha (2011), Director`s Special (2013) and Krishna Leela (2015). While his performance in the bilingual drama Cyanide won Raghu a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, he won the second State Film Award of his career for his work in Duniya. Other significant acting credits include the romantic comedy Romeo (2011), the horror thriller Jayammana Maga (2013), the action film Power (2014), Raajakumara (2017), the romantic comedy Mugulu Nage (2017), Loudspeaker (2018), My Name Is Annappa (2018), Orange (2018), Panchatantra (2019), Adhyaksha In America (2019), Geetha (2019), Aayushmanbhava (2019), Sarvajanikarige Suvarnavakaasha (2019), Matte Udbhava (2020), Drona (2020), French Biryani (2020), Ramarjuna (2021), Gajakessari (2021) and Salaga (2021).