Prakash Raj
Name: Prakash Raj
Birthdate: 26th March, 1965
Zodiac: Aries
Marital Status: In 1994, Prakash Raj tied the knot with actress Lalitha Kumari and they had a son Sidhu and two daughters, Pooja and Meghana. Sidhu died of injuries sustained in a fall in 2004. In 2009 this couple got divorced and later next year on the 24th of August, 2010, he married Pony Verma, the choreographer.
Awards:
1) Prakash Raj won the 2012 Apsara Film and Television Producers Guilds Awards for ‘Singham’ in the Best Actor in Negative Role category.
2) He also received numerous Filmfare South Awards which is basically a segment of the original Filmfare Awards and is given to the Southern film industry in India which includes Telegu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam Film Industries.
      > He won the Best Supporting Actor Award in 2002 for the Trivikram Srinivas directed Telegu film, ‘Nuvve Nuvve’.
      > Next year in 2003, Prakash Raj received one Best Supporting Actor Award for V. V. Vinayak’s ‘Tagore’. He also received a nomination in the same category for the Tamil film, ‘Chokka Thangam’ directed by K. Bhagyaraj.
      > Next year he was awarded with two Best Villain awards for the Tamil films ‘Sivakasi’ (directed by Perarasu) and ‘Ghilli’ (directed by Dharani).
      > Although in 2008 he did not receive any awards yet he earned two nominations in the Best Supporting Actor category for the films ‘Kotha Bangaru Lokam’ (directed by Srikanth Addala) and ‘Abhiyum Naanum’ (directed by Radha Mohan).
      > In 2009, he won the Best Actor award for Priyadarshan’s 2008 Tamil drama, ‘Kanchivaram’.
      > Next year in 2010, Prakash Raj was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award for the Tamil film, ‘Singham’, directed by Hari, and the following year he once again received a nomination in the same category for the Telegu film ‘Dookudu’, directed by Sreenu Vaitla.
3) Prakash Raj won the International Indian Film Academy Awards in the ‘Best Performance in a Negative Role’ category for the 2012 Rohit Shetty action film, ‘Singham’.
4) In 2003, he bagged the International Tamil Film Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category for the 2003 Mani Ratnam’s ‘Kannathil Mutthamittal’.
5) Prakash Raj has also been honoured with numerous Nani Awards by the government of Andhra Pradesh.
      > In 2000, he won the award in the Best Character Actor category for Tirupathy Swami’s ‘Azad’.
      > Two years later in 2002 he won the Best Supporting Actor Award for the film ‘Khadgam’, directed by Krishna Vamsi.
      > Next year he bagged two more awards: the Best Character Actor Award for Puri Jagannadh’s ‘Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi’ and the Best Villain Award for K. Raghavendra Rao’s ‘Gangotri’.
      > In the year 2006, he received another Best Supporting Actor Award for Bhaskar’s ‘Bommarillu’.
      > In 2011, he once again was awarded with the Best Supporting Actor Award for Sreenu Vaitla’s ‘Dookudu’.
6) He won numerous National Film Awards for various films such as follows:
      > Prakash Raj won the Best Supporting Actor Award for the 1997 Tamil film ‘Iruvar’ directed by Mani Ratnam.
      > In 1999, he received the Special Jury Award for the 1998 Telegu film by Krishna Vamsi, titled ‘Anthapuram’.
      > In 2007, he was given the Best Actor Award for Priyadarshan’s ‘Kanchivaram’ and in 2010 he also received another award for the Kannada film by B. Suresha, titled ‘Puttakkana Highway’.
7) Prakash Raj was also honoured with the Santosham Film Award in the Best Villain category for the 2003 Gunashekar directed ‘Okkadu’.
8) Prakash Raj also received numerous Tamil Nadu State Film awards as follows:
      > In 1996 and 2000, he was awarded with two Best Villain Awards for the films, ‘Kalki’ and ‘Vaanavil’ respectively.
      > In 2010, he won the Best Character Artiste Award for ‘Abhiyum Naanum’.
9) Prakash Raj has also been presented with the prestigious Vijay Awards given by the Tamil channel ‘STAR Vijay’ to honour the stars from the Tamil Film Industry.
      > In 2006, he won the Favourite Villain Award for Perarasu’s ‘Sivakasi’.
      > Next year in 2007, Prakash Raj received the Best Supporting Actor Award for ‘Mozhi’.
      > In 2009, he once again received the Vijay Best Actor Award for ‘Kanchivaram’.
10) In 2012, he received the Zee Cine Award in the Best Actor in a Negative Role category for Rohit Shetty’s ‘Singham’.
11) Prakash Raj had also won three CineMAA Best Supporting Actor Awards for ‘Khadgam’, ‘Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi’ and ‘Dookudu’ respectively in 2003, 2004 and 2012.
12) In 2012 he received the South Indian International Movie Award in the Best Supporting Actor- Telegu category for ‘Dookudu’.
Biography: Prakash Raj is an established well-known National Award winning Indian director, producer and actor who has made his stamp in all the film industries in India including the Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telegu and Hindi film industries. Initially he used to be a major figure in Kannada cinema but he did not find much success there. He started gaining popularity when he entered the Tamil film industry through the 1994 K. Balachander movie ‘Duet’.
Prakash Raj was born on the 26th of March, 1964 in Puttur, Karnataka to an ethnic Bunt background. He pursued his education from the prestigious St Joseph’s Indian High School situated in the Indian city of Bangalore (now known as Bengaluru). Following his schooling, he joined St. Joseph’s College of Commerce where he started participating in various plays.
Prakash Raj set his foot into the acting department with Kannada serials such as ‘Guddada Bhootha’ and ‘Bisilu Kudure’. Later on he started appearing in Kannada films in supporting roles. ‘Lockup Death’, ‘Raamachari’ and ‘Nishkarsha’ are some of the Kannada films in which he played supporting roles. He made his first ever breakthrough with K. S. L. Swamy’s ‘Harakeya Kuri’, starring Geetha and Vishnuvardhan. Geetha was impressed by his performance in the film and as a result she introduced Prakash to K. Balachander, her mentor and a Tamil movie director. He initially started appearing in Kannada with the screen name of ‘Prakash Rai’ which was later on modified to ‘Prakash Raj’ by K. Balachander for the film ‘Duet’.
In 1997, Prakash Raj returned to the Kannada film industry through T. S. Nagabharana’s ‘Nagamandala’. He has also been an important character in numerous stage shows by Mani Ratnam such as ‘Naalai’, ‘Netru’ and ‘Indru’. Same year he starred in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Iruvar’. This biopic depicts the relationship between two politicians, M. Karunanidhi and M.G Ramachandran. Through the film ‘Okkadu’, Prakash Raj gained a lot of popularity in the film industry. After the success of ‘Okkadu’, he started getting numerous offers from different directors in the country. This very film was later remade in Kannada and Tamil languages as ‘Ajay’ and ‘Ghilli’ respectively. He also earned lots of critical praise for his act in the film ‘Mozhi’, directed by Raja Mohan. This film went on to do wonders at the box office. Next up, in Venkat Prabhu’s film ‘Saroja’, Prakash Raj played the all important role of a business tycoon from Hyderabad.
As a producer, Prakash Raj produced numerous films in Tamil dialect and most of his films went on to become big hits at the theatres. His films are considered to be pure family entertainers. ‘Dhaya’ was one of the films where he had put on the shoes of both the producer as well as the lead actor. This movie was a big success and he received a special jury award for this film. Next up his movie titled ‘Poi’ starring K. Balachander, Prakash Raj, Uday Kiran and directed by K. Balachander himself, was a non grosser.
‘Naanu Nanna Kanasu’, one his Kannada productions successfully completed a hundred days all across Karnataka. ‘Akasmaath’, directed by Dayal Padmanabhan was Prakash Raj’s next venture as producer after ‘Naanu Nanna Kanasu’. Next up, he produced the Kannada film, ‘Puttakkana Highway’. In 2011, this movie went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada.
Sitting in the director’s chair, in 2010, he gave to the audience a Kannada flick titled ‘Naanu Nanna Kanasu’. This film was a remake of ‘Abhiyum Naanum’, his very own produced Tamil movie. His latest project as director is a sports film titled ‘Dhoni’. This film which would be a bilingual one (Tamil and Telegu) is named after the captain of the Indian National Cricket team.