Vikram Kennedy

Vikram (born as Vikram Kennedy on 17 April 1966) is an Indian film actor who predominantly appears in Tamil language films and has won sixFilmfare Awards as well as one National Film Award and Tamil Nadu State Film Award amongst other recognitions and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the People's University of Milan in May 2011.

         He made his debut in the 1990 film En Kadhal Kanmani, which was followed by a series of small-budget Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films in the 1990s, many of which went unnoticed. However the success of Bala's tragedy film Sethu (1999), in which Vikram appeared as a rogue turned lover, started Vikram's successful career as an actor. In the early 2000s, Vikram appeared in a series of masala films, with Dhill (2001), Gemini (2002),Dhool (2003) and Saamy (2003) becoming commercially successful ventures. During the period, Vikram also appeared in diverse roles and received critical acclaim for his performance as a blind villager in Kasi and a Robin Hood-esque figure in Samurai. In 2003, Vikram's performance as a gravedigger with autism spectrum disorders in Bala's Pithamagan saw him win the National Film Award for Best Actor, with his character only speaking a couple of lines of dialogue in the entire film. His appearance as an innocent Brahmin with multiple personality disorder in Shankar's blockbuster Anniyan (2005) also won critical acclaim, as did his appearance as a superhero in Kanthaswamy (2009). Vikram's portrayal of Veeraiya, a tribal leader inspired by the Ramayana character Ravana, in Mani Ratnam's Raavanan saw him secure further accolades, as did his appearance as a mentally challenged adult with the maturity of a six-year-old boy in Deiva Thirumagal (2011).

Vikram has promoted various social causes and appeared as the Youth Envoy for the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in 2011. He has been a brand ambassador of Sanjeevani Trust and a school for special children, Vidya Sudha, which he stayed at during the making of Deiva Thirumagal as well as having long-term associations with the Kasi Eye Care and running his own welfare association through the Vikram Foundation.

Vikram's intense performances and variety of roles has received critical acclaim. His performances as a rogue turned mentally ill patient in Sethu, a gravedigger with autism spectrum disorder in Bala's Pithamagan, a Brahmin lawyer with multiple personality disorder inAnniyan and a mentally challenged adult with the maturity of a six-year-old boy in Deiva Thirumagal are all roles in which he played a mentally affected man, with Vikram mentioning he does such roles to reinvent himself on screen. Furthermore, Vikram has enjoyed a large fan following in Andhra Pradesh as a result of a series of successful dubbed Telugu films with Aparichitudu, dubbed from his Tamil film Anniyan, being among the most successful Telugu films of 2005. All his films are thus released in Telugu soon after their original release in Tamil, while Anniyan was also dubbed in Hindi as Aparichit.

He is amongst the most decorated actors in terms of awards in the history of Tamil cinema. He holds a National Film Award for Best Actor; a feat only matched by four other actors in Tamil films. Moreover, Vikram holds four Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil, with the tally being only second toKamal Haasan who has ten wins. In 2010 his film, Raavan was promoted at the Cannes Film Festival and then screened at Venice Film Festival and theBusan International Film Festival. Within weeks of release, Deiva Thirumagal was sent to the Asia Pacific Screen Awards after it was nominated by the Film Federation of India and the National Film Development Corporation. Vikram is also a recipient of the Kalaimamani Award from theGovernment of Tamil Nadu in 2004. Other recognitions includes a string of Cinema Express Awards, Vijay Awards and Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, including recognition in three different categories. In 2011, Vikram was awarded an honorary doctorate from Università Popolare degli Studi di Milano (People's University of Milan) in the field of Fine Arts. Vikram accepted the title on 29 May 2011 and in his next release, Deiva Thirumagal, he was creditted as Dr. Chiyaan Vikram.