This Actress Starred in Flops Yet Remains Among Highest-Paid

These days, actors are anonymously judged by their popularity metrics alongside their box-office records. The more an actor earns in income, the even bigger they become. Today, ‘Pan-India’ is a term that has become the norm due to filmmaker SS Rajamouli’s introduction of megastar Prabhas to the North with Baahubali as he smashed regional boundaries.

But being a pan-India star doesn’t necessarily guarantee great success at the box office numbers though. There is this one actress, who seems to be dominating the Telugu industry but is struggling to make it big in the Bollywood industry. She has collaborated with many stars, but throughout her career, she has never registered a single hit. We know her as Pooja Hegde.

Pooja made here first acting appearance alongside Jiiva in the Tamil superhero film Mugamoodi. The film was a critical disaster and also didn’t do well commercially. In 2014, she made her debut with her second film Oka Laila Kosam with Naga Chaitanya. The film did extremely well and further cemented Pooja’s prominence in Tollywood. Thereafter, she achieved success in other super hit South Indian movies like Oka Laila Kosam, Mukunda, etc.

With her success in Telugu films, Pooja made her foray into Bollywood by signing Ashutosh Govariker’s Mohenjo Daro where she starred opposite Hrithik Roshan. The film was released in 2016 but as has become the norm with Hrithik’s films, it was a commercial disaster. 

Pooja’s second Hindi film was a Akshay Kumar starrer – Housefull 4 (2019), which was a super hit. With the exception of Housefull 4, Pooja has yet to have other solo successes. Her next two Hindi films were with Ranveer Singh and Salman Khan – Cirkus and Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan. They were both poorly received and were massive failures at the box office.

Pooja also acted in the pan Indian film Radhe Shyam alongside Prabhas which was one of the biggest flops of that year. The actress was recently seen with Shahid Kapoor in the action thriller Deva. The film crossed 30 crores at the Indian box office but not in others. The film did not perform well overall. She will be next seen with Suriya in Karthik Subbaraj’s Retro, which is a Tamil romantic action film.

Pooja is now among the highest paid actresses in india with a net worth of around 55 to 60 crores. This is despite lacking major hits in the past.