Shobana

Biography:

Born on March 21, 1970, Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer. In addition to Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, and English films, she primarily appears in Malayalam films. She has received multiple honours, including the 2011 Kalaimamani Award from Tamil Nadu State, two National Film Awards, one Kerala State Film Award, two Filmfare Awards South, and fourteen nominations for Best Actress in three different south Indian languages. Over the course of her about 35–40 year career, Shobana has acted in about 163 films in a variety of regional languages, including 90 Malayalam, 44 Telugu, 21 Tamil, 2 Kannada, and 3 Hindi and English language films.

Shobana had her training from Padma Subrahmanyam and Chitra Visweswaran, two Bharatanatyam dancers. In her twenties, she became a successful solo performer and choreographer. She currently owns and operates Kalarpana, a dance school in Chennai. She received the Padma Shri award from the Indian government in 2006 in recognition of her services to the arts.

She received the Kala Ratna Award in 2014 from the Kerala State Government. 2019 saw the Dr. M.G.R. Educational and Research Institute grant her an honorary doctorate. She graduated with a Doctor of Letters from Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in 2022.