Anandaraj

His father had hoped he would join the police. Anandaraj enrolled instead at the M.G.R. Government Film and Television Training Institute in Chennai, where Kannada actor Shiva Rajkumar was a classmate. Born on 10 November 1958 in Pondicherry, where he grew up, he has acted in more than 300 films across Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi, and is best known for villain and comic roles in Tamil cinema. A period of struggle came before his debut in Oruvar Vaazhum Aalayam (1988), which starred Prabhu and Sivakumar. P. Vasu's En Thangachi Padichava gave him his break. He led Kaaval Nilayam, Government Mappillai and Puthiya Aatchi, though these did not succeed at the box office, and became a regular adversary to leading stars: Chiranjeevi in Gang Leader, Rajinikanth in Baashha, Mammootty in Makkal Aatchi, R. Sarathkumar in Suryavamsam and Vijay in Pokkiri. Mundasupatti (2014) turned him towards comedy. That same year he trained for a year and lost about 12 kilos to play a don in Prabhu Deva's Action Jackson. Comic-villain roles followed in Naanum Rowdydhaan, Maragadha Naanayam and Gulaebaghavali, and Jackpot (2019) won him Vikatan's Best Comedian award. He is in the cast of Jithu Madhavan's Tamil film Scene (2026), starring Suriya, which opens in Gulf theatres on 6 November.