Kani Kusruti

At 15, filling in her class 10 exam form, Kani chose the surname "Kusruti", Malayalam for mischievous. Kani Kusruti was born in 1985 in Cheruvakkal, a village in Thiruvananthapuram district, to social activist parents, and her screen work, mostly in Malayalam films, has run alongside a long career in theatre. Theatre came first, at the Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre, where she played Vasantsena in Bhagavadajjukam from 2000 to 2006. She then studied at the Thrissur School of Drama and spent two years on physical theatre at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Back home, she drew critical attention in the 2009 anthology Kerala Cafe, in the segment "Island Express". Shikkar and Cocktail (both 2010) followed. International theatre kept her busy too: she played Miranda in Footsbarn's The Indian Tempest, which reached Shakespeare's Globe in 2013. Home audiences came to know her through the TV serial Eswaran Sakshiyayi (2015), in which she played Advocate Tresa. Biriyaani (2019) won her Best Actress at the Kerala State Film Awards and at the Moscow International Film Festival. She starred in the independent films All We Imagine as Light and Girls Will Be Girls (both 2024), and leads the SonyLIV series Eyes (2026).