CHIYAAN

Kennedy John Victor (born 17 April 1966), better known by his stage name Vikram or Chiyaan Vikram, is an Indian actor and singer who predominantly appears in Tamil language films. He has won seven Filmfare 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 Telugufilms 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 idealistic lawyer 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 Ramayanacharacter 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). He consequently appeared in multiple get-ups as a bodybuilder and a crippled hunchback, losing up to 35 kilograms for sequences, during the making of Shankar's romantic thriller I (2015) and won rave reviews from critics for his performance. It is currently the sixth highest-grossing Tamil film of all time.

Vikram has promoted various social causes and appeared as the Youth Envoy for the United Nations Human Settlements Programmein 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. In 2016, he produced and directed the video to the flood relief anthem, Spirit of Chennai, as a tribute to the city's volunteers following the 2015 South Indian floods.

Vikram met Shailaja Balakrishnan in the late 1980s and married her in 1992 at Guruvayoor in a mass wedding alongside dozens of couples. The pair also then had a low-key wedding ceremony conducted at the church at Loyola College, Chennai. She originates from Thalassery, Kerala and now works as a psychology teacher at a leading Chennai school. Shailaja also worked with the team of Deiva Thirumagal by giving professional advice on how people with special needs are treated and helping develop the character played by Vikram. The couple has a daughter Akshita and a son Dhruv.^] His daughter married Manu Ranjith, the great-grandson of M. Karunanidhi on 30 October 2017. He resides near the beach in Besant Nagar, Chennai and has stated that he would remain based in Chennai regardless of any offers in other regional films. Dhruv is making his debut in Tamil cinema with Varma, the remake of the Telugu film Arjun Reddy.