Mohanlal

Mohanlal's first film waited 25 years. He shot Thiranottam in 1978, at the age of 18, but censorship troubles held back its release for a quarter of a century, so audiences first met him as the villain of Manjil Virinja Pookkal (1980). Born Mohanlal Viswanathan on 21 May 1960 in Elanthoor, Pathanamthitta, and called Lalettan by his audiences, he has since built a filmography of more than 400 titles across over four decades. He is a leading star of Malayalam cinema, also produces and sings, and has taken occasional roles in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. Negative and supporting parts came first. By the mid-1980s he had moved to leads, and Rajavinte Makan (1986) cemented his standing as a star. Kilukkam, Thenmavin Kombathu, Drishyam, Pulimurugan and Lucifer are among his widely seen Malayalam films; Iruvar, Company and Janatha Garage took him to other industries. Bharatham and Vanaprastham each won him the National Film Award for Best Actor. The Government of India conferred the Padma Shri in 2001 and the Padma Bhushan in 2019, and in September 2025 he received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2023. Lately he has returned as Georgekutty in Drishyam 2 and Drishyam 3, led Thudarum (2025), played Mathew in the Tamil films Jailer and Jailer 2, and made special appearances in Khalifa and Thudakkam. Operation Ganga, his upcoming project, is shooting abroad with Uganda's Ghetto Kids.