Mukesh Rishi is an Indian film actor who has worked in Hindi, Bengali, Odia, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu films. After his graduation from Chandigarh, and working for two years in Mumbai, he went to work in Fiji where he met his wife of Fijian-Indian descent. Her family ran a traditional departmental store. After marriage they went to New Zealand, where Mukesh started his career as a model. However, he could hardly find time for modelling due to a busy work schedule and was dissatisfied with his modelling assignments. After seven years, he returned to Mumbai, India and enrolled in Roshan Taneja's acting school. He got his first break in Tollywood in 1988 and has since, established himself as a leading character actor. Although he started his career in Telugu films as a villain, he has diversified into positive roles. In this transition, he joins a list of non-Telugu speaking actors, such as Amrish Puri, Puneet Issar, Sharat Saxena, and Pradeep Rawat, who have played the role of the villain in Telugu movies. He has also acted in Oriya films.