Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan is an actor filmmaker and producer who has worked primarily in Tamillanguage cinema for over six decades and is widely regarded as one of the finest actors of Indian cinema An auteur he is recognized as a key influence for numerous actors and filmmakers in the Indian film industry and is also known for introducing new technologies and cosmetics to Indian cinema Among his numerous accolades are 4 National Film Awards 9 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards 4 Nandi Awards the Rashtrapati Award 2 Filmfare Awards and 17 Filmfare Awards South He was awarded the Kalaimamani Award in 1984 the Padma Shri in 1990 the Padma Bhushan in 2014 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Chevalier in 2016 Haasan is also known for having starred in the most number of films submitted by India in contention for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film In addition to his extensive work in Tamil he has appeared in Telugu Malayalam Hindi Kannada and Bengali films He has also worked in films as a screenwriter songwriter singer choreographer and lyricist His film production company Raj Kamal International Films RKIF has produced several of his films After beginning as a child actor Haasans breakthrough was with the film Apoorva Raagangal 1975 playing the role of a rebellious youth in love with an older woman He secured his second National Film Award for his performance in the romantic drama Moondram Pirai 1982 and later won acclaim for his performance in Mani Ratnams epic crime drama Nayagan 1987 which was ranked in TIME magazines AllTime 100 Movies list Since then he has gone on to appear in numerous other notable films including his own productions Hey Ram 2000 and Virumaandi 2004 as well as the Dasavathaaram 2008 in which he became the first actor in history to appear in ten distinct roles in the same film