He made his breakthrough portraying a student union leader in Vasanth's romantic drama film "Keladi Kanmani" (1990), and the commercial success of the film meant that Ramesh Aravind shifted base to Chennai and worked primarily on Tamil and Kannada films till 1996. He earned critical acclaim in Tamil cinema, portraying a love-ridden musician in Balachander's "Duet" (1994) as well as through his performance alongside Kamal Haasan in Balu Mahendra's comedy film on marriage, "Sathi Leelavathi" (1995). Meanwhile, he appeared in several consecutive commercially successful Kannada films, en route to becoming one of the industry's most bankable actors. Subsequently, he returned to the Bangalore-based film industry to prioritise his work in Kannada language films. His returns to feature in Tamil films since the mid 1990s have often seen him collaborate with his friend Kamal Haasan, in ventures including the unreleased "Kanden Seethaiyai", "Panchathantiram" (2002) and "Mumbai Xpress" (2005). He was also a celebrity RJ in Big FM.