Kalidas Jayaram – Youth Sensation & National award winning Malayalam film actor

Kalidas Jayaram, earlier credited as Kalidasan for his child artist roles is a popular young actor of Malayalam cinema. He is the son of iconic star pair of Malayalam silver screen – Jayaram and Parvathy who has done several hit films in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Like his star parents, Kalidas has also earned fame and recognition as a child actor as well as young hero. He won both National Film Awards and State awards for best child actor for Ente Veedu Appuvinteyum in 2003. After a few delays, his first lead role as an adult actor for Malayalam movies – Poomaram got released in 2018 to positive reviews. Before that he made his Tamil debut through 2016 film, Meen Kuzhambum Mann Paanaiyum, starring aside Prabhu.

Kalidas Jayaram was born in 1993 into a family with strong filmy background. So, he too started dreaming about acting at the age of 5. He made his screen debut with year 2000 National award winning film, Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal sharing screen space with his father. His second film Ente Veedu Appuvinteyum, once again sharing screen space with his father earned him the prestigious National award for best child actor. After that he took a break from acting to complete his studies, and returned to silver screen through 2016 Tamil film, Meen Kuzhambum Mann Paanaiyum in a parallel lead role. After the release of Poomaram, he signed a series of Malayalam projects such as Jeetu Joseph’s Mr & Miss Rowdy, Santhosh Sivan’s Jack & Jill and Mithun Manuel’s Argentina Fans Kattoorkadavu.

Kalidas Jayaram – Some interesting and less-known facts

1. While Jayaram was shooting for the movie Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal at Goa, its director Satyan Anthikad wanted a 5-year old child for a role, and that’s how Kalidas got his first break to films.

2. He received Asianet Film Awards for best child artist for his first two releases – Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal and Ente Veedu Appuvinteyum. Later in 2019 he received Asianet Film Awards for Best New Face Actor for his debut Malayalam role as an adult actor, for the movie, Poomaram.

3. His first Tamil film Meen Kuzhambum Mann Paanaiyum bagged him SIIMA for best male debutant.

4. He has done playback singing for a couple of Malayalam film songs -“Thappo Thappo” from Ente Veedu Appuvinteyum aside his father and “Angethala” from Udayon aside Shankar Mahadevan and Mohanlal.

5. “Njanum Njanumentallum” from his film Poomaram filmed on him became extremely popular and went viral over net.

6. He is the grand-nephew of acclaimed Malayalam writer Malayattoor Ramakrishnan.

7. Like his father he has done mimicry performances and has also participated in competitions during school and college days.

Kalidas with her celebrity family

8. While he was doing graduation at Loyola Chennai, he was overweighed. He used to have 110 kgs then, which prompted his college mates to give the role of King Mahabali for Onam celebrations. When he was given an option to skip it, he chose mimicry over Mahabali.

9. As he spent most of his time in Chennai, he was not fluent in Malayalam. As a part of preparation of his debut film, he stayed with a few of his friends of Maharaja’s college at Kochi, to correct his diction.

10. His sister Malavika is into fashion industry, a sports enthusiast too, but not interested in acting.