Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan is an Indian filmmaker and politician, currently serving as a Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha for Tamil Nadu. He is Regarded as One of the greatest and Most Versatile actors in Indian cinema. He is an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, playback singer and lyricist who works primarily in Tamil cinema. He has also worked as an assistant director, choreographer, editor, make-up artist, narrator, television host, and a distributor of films.

He founded a magazine, Maiam, which he edited, and has written over 100 poems and some books. He has made over 230 films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali. He was conferred the Kalaimamani in 1978, the Padma Shri in 1990, the Padma Bhushan in 2014, and the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier) by the Government of France in 2016. He was invited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2025 to become a member of its actors' branch.

Kamal Haasan was born on 7 November 1954 in Paramakudi into a Tamil Brahmin Thengalai Iyengar family, to D. Srinivasan Iyengar, who was a lawyer and freedom fighter, and Rajalakshmi, who was a housewife. He was initially named after Parthasarathy, the presiding deity at the Parthasarathy Temple, Chennai . His father later changed the name to Kamal Haasan, Kamal meaning lotus and Hassan deriving hasya, the Sanskrit word for laughter.