Prakash Raj (born Prakash Rai; 26 March 1965) is an Indian actor, director and producer who has appeared in several hundred films in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi. He is best known to the wider public for his villains in films such as Ghilli, Pokiri, Wanted and Singham, and to critics for performances in Iruvar and Kanchivaram. He has won five National Film Awards. Since 2017 he has also been a prominent political commentator.
Quick Facts
| Birth name | Prakash Rai |
| Born | 26 March 1965, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India |
| Age | 61 |
| Occupation | Actor, director, producer |
| Years active | 1986–present |
| Known for | Iruvar, Kanchivaram, Ghilli, Pokiri, Singham |
| Education | St. Joseph’s Indian High School; St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru |
| Spouse | Lalitha Kumari (m. 1994; div. 2009); Pony Verma (m. 2010) |
| Awards | 5 National Film Awards |
Early Life
Prakash Raj was born in Bengaluru to Manjunath Rai, who came from a Tulu-speaking family of coastal Karnataka, and Swarnalatha, a nurse. He grew up in a lower-middle-class home and studied at St. Joseph’s schools in the city. He did not finish his commerce degree; by then he had joined the amateur theatre groups that met at Kalakshetra in Bengaluru, and he has said he performed in some two thousand street plays for a few hundred rupees a month.
Career
He acted in Kannada television serials for Doordarshan, including Bisilu Kudure, and in small film roles. The Kannada film Harakeya Kuri brought him to the notice of the Tamil director K. Balachander.
Balachander cast him in Duet (1994) and suggested the screen name Prakash Raj; the actor later named his production company Duet Movies in gratitude. In Mani Ratnam‘s Iruvar (1997) he played a writer turned politician modelled on M. Karunanidhi, opposite Mohanlal, and won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. A special mention for the Telugu film Anthahpuram followed the next year.
In the 2000s he became the most in-demand antagonist in South Indian cinema. The Telugu hit Okkadu and its Tamil remake Ghilli (2004), with Vijay, made his obsessive gangster Muthupandi a pop-culture figure, and Pokiri, with Mahesh Babu, repeated the success. He was equally effective as a father, in Bommarillu and Abhiyum Naanum. For Priyadarshan’s Kanchivaram (2008), in which he played a silk weaver who cannot afford a silk sari for his daughter’s wedding, he won the National Film Award for Best Actor.
Hindi audiences know him as the villain of Wanted (2009), Jaikant Shikre in Rohit Shetty’s Singham (2011) and Dabangg 2. As a producer he backed Mozhi, Abhiyum Naanum and the Kannada film Puttakkana Highway, which won a National Award. He directed Naanu Nanna Kanasu (2010), Dhoni (2012) and the trilingual Oggarane (2014). Recent work includes Jai Bhim, K.G.F: Chapter 2, Major and the two-part Ponniyin Selvan.
After his friend, the journalist Gauri Lankesh, was shot dead in Bengaluru in September 2017, he began to criticise the Union government and Hindu nationalist politics on social media under the tag “Just Asking”. He contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election from Bengaluru Central as an independent and lost heavily, but has remained an outspoken voice.
Personal Life
He married the actor Lalitha Kumari in 1994. They had two daughters and a son, Sidhu, who died in 2004 at the age of five after a fall; the couple divorced in 2009. In 2010 he married the choreographer Pony Verma, with whom he has a son. He farms on land outside Hyderabad and has adopted villages in Telangana and Karnataka for development work.
National Film Awards
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Prakash Raj born?
Prakash Raj was born on 26 March 1965 in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India and is 61 years old.
What is Prakash Raj known for?
Known for: Iruvar, Kanchivaram, Ghilli, Pokiri, Singham.
What honours has Prakash Raj received?
5 National Film Awards.
Featured image: Prakash Raj at the Kerala Literature Festival, Kozhikode, February 2018. Photo by Sreejithkoiloth, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
