Sameera was born in the Telugu-speaking Reddy family on December 14, 1978. She has two sisters, Meghna and Sushma. The Reddy ancestors hailed from a small town named Rajamundry in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh.
While still a student in Sydenham College, she sang in Pankaj Udhas' video 'Aashita' with a blond male Caucasian. Then partly influenced by her siblings' success, she bagged some modeling assignments, including Lissome, as well as appeared in a Telugu movie. Plump, hair tied back, and bespectacled, she started working as a Marketing Executive with a multi-national company.
Sameera decided to take her acting career seriously and starting working out, eating the right foods, going to the gym, jogging, Kathak (a dance form in South India), swimming and yoga. She allowed herself 8 hours of sleep everyday and indulged her skin with all kinds of natural ingredients like curd and honey, and generally avoided make-up.
This regular routine paid off resulting in one of India's hottest film actresses' and she made her debut opposite Sohail Khan in 'Maine Dil Tujko Diya'. This movie did not fare well but got her noticed and launched her career in Bollywood
