Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan was six when Kalathur Kannamma (1960) brought him to the screen and won him the President's gold medal. Kannum Karalum (1962) was his first Malayalam film. Born on 7 November 1954 in Paramakudi, he grew up in a family where his elder brothers Charuhasan and Chandrahasan also acted. He trained with T. K. Shanmugam's theatre company and, after a seven-year gap, came back to films as a dance assistant to choreographer Thankappan. Tamil cinema is his main ground, but he has made more than 230 films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali. Besides acting, directing, producing, screenwriting, playback singing and writing lyrics, he has worked as an assistant director, choreographer, editor, make-up artist and television host. Moondram Pirai, Nayagan and Indian each won him the National Film Award for Best Actor. His honours include the Kalaimamani (1978), the Padma Shri (1990), the Padma Bhushan (2014) and France's Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016), and in 2025 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited him into its actors' branch. He founded the magazine Maiam and has written over 100 poems. A politician too, he launched Makkal Needhi Maiam in 2018 and took oath as a Rajya Sabha member from Tamil Nadu on 25 July 2025. On screen he played Supreme Yaskin, the god-king ruling a post-apocalyptic world, in the Telugu film Kalki 2898 AD (2024).