[2] Owing to her "love for being on the stage"[2] since childhood, she acted in all sorts of amateur and professional stageplays while in school and college.

[3] After graduating with a degree in English literature from Loreto College in Kolkata, she began a hotel management course in New Delhi but left it to pursue a course in theatre in Mumbai.

[4] After a chance meeting, actor-director Revathi offered her a role in her second directorial venture, Phir Milenge, a film about AIDS.

Following this, came Gamyam by Krish, a film widely praised by critics and audiences alike and subsequently remade in Tamil and Kannada, both of which featured Kamalinee in the lead role.

[citation needed] In 2009, she played the role of Latin Christian woman, Pemenna, in Kutty Srank, directed by Cannes award-winning director, Shaji N. Karun, and starring Malayalam matinee idol, Mammooty.

Her next project was new-age Malayalam director, V. K. Prakash's Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla, where she played a quirky character opposite Fahadh Faasil.

In 2016, Kamalinee worked with award-winning director Karthik Subbaraj in his second directorial venture, a woman-oriented film, Iraivi.

[17] After her special-appearance song in Malayalam director Vysakh's 2014 film Cousins, she was cast opposite Mohanlal in the box office record-breaking Pulimurugan.

[18] Kamalinee is a supporter of the non-profit organizations CHORD India and World Vision, which are both involved in rehabilitation, welfare and the education of children.

[21] In 2014, she launched Chinese-American poet Wand Ping's anthology Ten Thousand Waves in Hyderabad, India at a poetry reading event.