Referred to popularly as "Chinnari Mutha",[1] Vijay is the son of producer S. A. Chinne Gowda and nephew of actor Dr. Rajkumar.

Vijay started his career as a child artist through the film Chalisuva Modagalu (1982) and won critical acclaims for his performances in Chinnari Mutha (1993) and Kotreshi Kanasu (1994).

[3] His first lead role was in Ramoji Rao's production titled Ninagagi in 2002, which was a commercial success and one of the highest-grossing films of the year.

[5] In 2013, by public vote, Vijay won the first season of the game show Bigg Boss Kannada – one of the Indian versions of Celebrity Big Brother, currently produced by Endemol India.

Vijay won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Child Actor (Male) for his portrayal of an innocent Mutha who rises to great popularity through his good deeds.

[8] His popularity further rose in 1995 with the Nagathihalli Chandrashekar's film adaption of the novel "Kotra Highschoolige Seriddu", titled Kotreshi Kanasu.

Vijay played the title role of Kotreshi and went on to win the National Film Award for Best Child Artist for the year 1994–95.

He again played the title role as the young and blind reformer Gawai and also portrayed the younger part of Narendra in the Hindi film Swami Vivekananda.

[15][16] In 2013, it was announced that he had joined other Bollywood and international celebrities in the TeachAids initiative, a state-of-the-art approach to worldwide HIV prevention, developed at Stanford University.