In her acting career, she was often cast as the glamorous girl in films from 1980's. She gave up her career after getting married to actor Kamal Hassan and moved to Chennai with him during the top height of her career. Sarika’s daughter Shruti Hassan is also an Bollywood actress and has appeared in films Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji and Luck. Sarika has now made a comeback in Hindi movies after a long gap. She played Ipsita Ray Chakraverti in the film Sacred Evil – A True Story which badly failed at the box office. In year 2000, she won the National Film Award for Best Costume Design for the film Hey Ram, her outstanding performance in Parzania in which she played the character of a Zoroastrian woman who loses her child during the 2002 riots of India, bagged her the National Film Award for Best Actress.
The Bollywood most talented actress also starred as Sheetal Thadani in the Bollywood film Bheja Fry which was released in 2006. Sarika on the other hand also had a small but important role to play in Manorama Six Feet Under. See was last seen in “Shoebite” which got released last year where she was paired up opposite the most honourable Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan.