While in college, she started modelling for Saravana Stores. Thanks to her work in a Tata Gold Tanishq advertisement, she was auditioned and selected by noted Telugu director Sekhar Kammula to act in his production, Avakai Biryani. Her family was strictly against her entering the film industry, with Madhavi citing that her father did not speak to her for eight months and that her mother too was upset.
