Naveen Polishetty was born into a middle class family in Hyderabad. His father is in the pharmaceutical business while his mother is a bank employee. He has an elder brother and an elder sister who are twins. Both his siblings are settled in the United States. He graduated in Civil engineering from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (also known as NIT Bhopal) and joined a software firm in Pune. He later moved to England to work as an engineer, but wasn't happy with his job at all. He then secretly returned to India without informing his parents, and started to live in Mumbai by renting a house and doing some part-time jobs to pursue a full-time career in acting. He started working in theatre and performed in several plays.
Naveen made his debut with the Telugu film Life Is Beautiful in 2012 directed by Shekhar Kammula. This film has a lot of new faces. He also played a minor role in the Mahesh Babu-starrer 1: Nenokkadine in 2014. Both his roles were not very impactful and could not bring him to limelight. His subsequent Telugu projects were either shelved films or replaced by other actors, Polishetty moved to theatre and stand-up comedy.
Later, he collaborated with All India Bakchod to make YouTube skits through which he started getting recognition for his comedy timing and acting skills. He got a wide response for his portrayal of an "average" guy in Honest Engineering Campus Placements.
In 2019, Polishetty returned to Telugu cinema with the comedy thriller film Agent Sai Srinivas Athreya, which he co-wrote and played the lead. Though this film released without much hype, it stole the show and Naveen was impactful throughout the film. The film won him the Zee Cine Awards Telugu – Best Film of the Year . He then made his Hindi cinema debut in Nitesh Tiwari's Chhichhore. Both the films performed very well at box office. It was only then people started recognizing him for the small roles he did in his initial days, his TEDx talk has introduced him to the audience. He then starred in the 2021 comedy film Jathi Ratnalu. This movie was held before it was released in theatres due to the Covid Pandemic but Naveen was active with short videos and reels on Instagram, promoting the film in his own style and that kept the interest. Since the film also came from a noted Telugu Production house, it was an awaited film and the film was commercially successful at the box office, with a gross collection of ₹70 crore. The film thus emerged as Polishetty's biggest success. Anupama Chopra of Film companion felt that his character Jogipet Srikanth, is "terrific" and "a charming everyman". In May 2021, he signed a film alongside Anushka Shetty under UV Creations banner and will be next featured in the sequel of his previous film Jathi Ratnalu.
