Santosh Kumar Acharya
Santosh Kumar Acharya, fondly known as Sonu by many, truly embodies what George Bernard Shaw once said- “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
After having worked in the corporate sector from 1997 to 2004, he ventured out on his own in 2004 as a small time casting director and coordinator. He built Sujal Associates from scratch, in 2004. His journey since then has been nothing short of brilliant.
The first movie where he shone as a casting director was Aishwarya (2006), a Kannada movie starring Deepika Padukone, directed by Indrajit Lankesh. It was a movie that paved his path forward to a very lucrative career as a casting director.
He has since then worked with models and actresses like Anushka Sharma, Kriti Kharbanda, Nidhi Subbaiah, Pranitha Subhash, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Tamanna Bhatia, Ileana d'Cruz, and Nicole Faria, who started her career as a model with him in 2007. He launched many other new faces into the limelight, including Catherine Tresa, who he introduced in Shankar IPS (2010), directed by M. S. Ramesh. Many actors started off as models through Sonu’s agency, and moved on to becoming actors and making names for themselves, launched by Sujal Associates, later to be rebranded and renamed Elios.
Between the span of 2004 to 2010, Sonu successfully casted for more than a hundred feature films in Telugu, Tamil and Kannada, including the 2008 movie Black Diamond, with Shiny Ahuja and Ileana D’ Cruz at the centre, which was never completed and therefore never released. But that was quickly overshadowed by what he considers his biggest assignment in Bollywood, casting for 3 Idiots (2009), the movie that is considered an all time blockbuster, winning six Filmfare Awards and many others.
He then worked as an Image Consultant, and in Studio Operations for Flipkart from 2011.
It can be safely said that he has worked with most premium brands in India, casting new and familiar faces in more than a thousand advertisement campaigns. His clients range from six month old babies to eighty two year old men. His is indeed a full fledged agency and production house.
Another big achievement worth mentioning was when he opened the first international modelling agency in Bangalore in 2012. He scouted more than eighty countries to bring models to Bangalore, to represent names like Flipkart, Myntra, Arvind Mills, Madura Lifestyle, Levis, Puma, Titan, Raymonds, Being Human, Pantaloons, Bhima Jewellers, Alukkas Jewellery, Krishna Shetty Jewellery, CKC Jewellers, Zara Middle east and Europe Hush Puppies, Roush, Adidas, Nike, Bata, Liberty, Jockey, ONN, Van Heusen, Arrow, Peter England, Fastrack, Ray Ban, Essa, Ramraj Cotton, Ajio, Wrangler, Lee, Big Cartoon, Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, Break Bounce, Aloft, Zivame, Chumbak, Amante, Triumph, Lovable, Vstar, Ashley and Elvis, Gokul Das, Dumble Wear, Wexford, Marks & Spencer, Future Group, ITC, and Amazon.
He continues to work with fresh new faces as well as well known faces, one of the latest ones being Shakeela (2020), with Richa Chadha and Pankaj Tripathi.
He has now expanded his reach and also works with singers and music directors. And to add to all his achievements, Udhamghar, which is still under production, is all set to stream on Netflix.
He, in so many ways, not only embodies George Bernard Shaw’s words, but also lends that to the people he works with. Because when you choose Elios as your agency, you know you’ll be able to create versions of yourself you never even dreamed of.
Indrajeet Lankesh, Vishal Bhardwaj, Rajkumar Irani, Sunil Kumar Desai, Rajiv Menon, M. Lingu Swami, Y.V.S Chowdhary, Krishna Vamsi, Vamsy.
