Anketa Maharana (born January 12, 1996), also credited as Apsara Rani, is an Indian actress and model who predominantly appears in Telugu films.
Anketa was born on 12 January 1996, in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India into a middle-class Odia Hindu family. She was interested in acting and modeling since childhood. Anketa decided to become an actress at a very early age. She completed her schooling from a local private school. Later, she completed her Engineering from GIT College in Belgaum. After completing her higher education, she stepped into the entertainment world. Currently, she works as a model and actress in the Tollywood film industry.
Anketa made her acting debut with R. Raghuraj's romantic drama 4 Letters. She featured alongside an ensemble cast including Eswar, Tuya Chakraborty, Posani Krishna Murali, Kausalya and Vidyullekha Raman. She played one of the two female lead roles, Anupama, a sexy fashion designing student. The critics singled out her vivacious performance and praised her screen presence and also said "Apsara catches you completely unaware" and has the "combination of looks and talent". The film emerged as a commercial success.
Her next film role was in the Satya Prakash directed romantic horror Oollalla Oollalla in 2020. Along with Nataraj and Noorin Shereef. The film was released on 1 January 2020 and received negative reviews upon its release and was declared a flop at the box office. The following year, she appeared opposite newcomer Rock Kacchi in Thriller, an romantic thriller from the director Ram Gopal Varma. It was on Ram Gopal Varma's insistence that Anketa changed her name to Apsara Rani.[1] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film was released on Shreyas ET App on 14 August 2020, and received positive reviews from the audience and critics.
In 2021, Apsara returned to Telugu Cinema with a special appearance in Gopichand Malineni's thriller mystery Krack starring Ravi Teja, Shruti Haasan, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar and Samuthirakani. She appeared as an item girl in "Bhoom Bhaddhal song", Apsara showcased her dance moves that left the fans mesmerized in the song. She was at the top of her game and energetically danced to the peppy beats of the track. She takes the floor by storm with her solo dance then set the stage on fire and leave the audience wanting to groove with them as well. The song already has 20 million hits on YouTube.
Apsara has also appeared as an item girl in "Pepsi Aunty Song" from the film Seetimaarr.
