Navya Nair

Navya Nair
File:Navya Nair.jpg Navya Nair
Born	Dhanya Nair (1985-10-14) 14 October 1985 Haripad, Kerala
Other names	Dhanya.V
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2001–present
Spouse	Santhosh Menon (2010–present)
Children	Sai Krishna
Relatives	K. Madhu (uncle)

Dhanya Nair (born 1985), better known by her stage name Navya Nair, is an Indian actress who works in Malayalam, Tamil, and Kannada films. She is well established in Malayalam, and is known for her Malayali girl image. She is two time recipient of Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress and Kalaimamani award.

Personal life

Navya Nair comes from Cheppad, a village in Alleppey District, and is the daughter of Raju and Veena. The film director K. Madhu is her uncle. She studied at MSM Higher Secondary School, where her mother was a teacher, and then obtained a BA in English and is an MBA graduate. She married Mumbai-based businessman, Santhosh Menon, on January 21, 2010 and their first child, Sai Krishna, was born on November 22, 2010.

She is expected to leave the filmdom after her marriage.

Film career

She was still at school when offered her first film role, starring opposite Dileep in Ishtam in 2001. There followed roles in partnership with Dileep, in films such as Mazhathullikkilukkam, Kunjikoonan, Kalyanaraman, Pandippada, Gramaphone and Pattanathil Sundaran.

The most popular character of Navya is that of 'Balamani' in Nandanam. Critics commented that "Balamani is a very memorable one. Like any live wire girl, she is opinionated, works hard and dishes out her verdict on anything and anyone if you want it or not. Navya lived the character of Balamani in a flawless performance".

She won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress in 2002 for Nandanam. Prithviraj Sukumaran is considered as her best partner in films. Prithviraj-Navya Nair Jodi was popular in 2002-2003. Prithviraj and Navya came together for the first time in 'Nandanam' (2002). They went on to act together in movies such as 'Vellithira', 'Ammakkilikoodu' and 'calendar'. She has been paired with superstars of the Malayalam film industry including Mohanlal, Mammooty, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Dileep, Prithviraj Sukumaran, and Jayasurya. She has had plastic surgery performed on her lips when she tore them while shooting a Malayalam film Immini Nalloral.

Many of her films were remade in other languages,like Kunjikoonan and Nandanam. She is attracted to offbeat movies, such as Saira and Kanne Madanguka. Saira was the opening film in the section Tous Les Cinemas Du Monde at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2007, which was the 4th Malayalam film screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. Saira has participated in 21 other international film festivals like USA, Brazil, Israel, Russia, Italy, Greece, Zimbabwe, Belgium, Bangladesh etc. The film was selected at the Indian Panorama 2006. Critics wrote that "Navya Nair has brilliantly portrayed Saira during different stages of her life - as the plucky journalist and as the helpless victim of rape and police harassment and portrayal of Karunya in Kanne Madanguka, from a simple school girl with just studies in her mind, she turns to a wage earner and the changes in her character are very well done". She won the state award again in 2005 for her performance in Kanne Madanguka and Saira.

Her debut in Tamil cinema came with Azhagiya Theeye and her first role in Kannada cinema was in Gaja but the most notable one was the 2009 Tamil movie Aadum Koothu, which won the National Award for the best Tamil film. The T.V.Chandran film revolved around a character called Manimekala played by Navya Nair. She was considered for the National award for Best Actress, which happened for the third time, the first two times being in 2002 for Nandanam and in 2005 for Saira. She concentrated on performance oriented character in Tamil as she had done in Malayalam. She won the Kalaimamani award. Even though she has done only a few Kannada movies, all were commercially and critically successful.

She has around 50 movies to her credit. After marriage she made her comeback as a judge in Munch Dance Dance in Asianet.

After marriage, she came back to film through 'Scene Onnu Nammude Veedu' in which she had the role of a school teacher named 'Manju' opposite to Lal.

Dance career

She is a good classical dancer. She was Kalathilakam of Alappuzha district several times. She lost Kalathilakapattam of state Kalolsavam in 2001 which was held at Thodupuzha. she performed Bharathanatyam, Kuchupudi, Ottam Thullal, Mohiniyattam,Kuchupudi etc. She practices Kuchupudi at a deep level.

Awards

• 2005 - Best Actress, Kanne Madanguka, Saira
• 2002 - Best Actress, Nandanam
• 2002 -Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Malayalam - Nandanam

Filmography

No.	Year	Film	Role	Language	Co-star	Director	Notes
1	2001	Ishtam	Anjana	Malayalam	Dileep	Sibi Malayil
2	2002	Mazhathullikkilukkam	Sophie	Malayalam	Dileep	Akbar Jose
3		Nandanam	Balamani	Malayalam	Prithviraj	Ranjith	Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Malayalam Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress
4		Kalyanaraman	Gauri	Malayalam	Dileep	Shafi
5		Deepangal Sakshi	Krishnaveni Kesavan	Malayalam	Indrajith	K. Madhu
6		Kunjikoonan	Chembakam	Malayalam	Dileep	Sasi Shanker
7		Chathurangam	Sherin Mathew	Malayalam	Mohanlal	K. Madhu
8	2003	Gramaphone	Pooja	Malayalam	Dileep	Kamal
9		Vellithira	Thatha	Malayalam	Prithviraj	Bhadran
10		Ammakilikkoodu	Akhila	Malayalam	Prithviraj	M Padmakumar
11		Pattanathil Sundaran	Radhamani Sundaresan	Malayalam	Dileep	Vipin Mohan
12	2004	Sethurama Iyer CBI	Rachana	Malayalam	Mammootty	K. Madhu
13		Jalolsavam	Geetha	Malayalam	Kunchacko Boban	Sibi Malayil
14		Chathikkatha Chanthu	Vasumathi	Malayalam	Jayasurya	Rafi Mecartin
15		Azhagiya Theeye	Nandhini	Tamil	Prasanna	Radha Mohan	First Tamil film
16		Parayam		Malayalam	Jishnu	Anil Babu	Guest appearance
17	2005	Immini Nalloraal	Sneha	Malayalam	Jayasurya	Rajasenan
18		Pandippada	Meena Karuppusamy	Malayalam	Dileep	Rafi Mecartin
19		Sarkar Dada	Sandhya	Malayalam	Jayaram	Sasi Shanker
20		Kanne Madanguka	Kaarunya Bhagyanathan	Malayalam	Murali	Alberrt Antoni	Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress also for Saira
21		Saira	Saira Hussain	Malayalam	Nedumudi Venu	Dr. Biju	Saira was the opening film in the section Tous Les Cinemas Du Monde at the Cannes International Film Festival. Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress also for Kanne Madanguka
22		Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy	Thenmozhi Elangovan	Tamil	Thangar Bachchan	Thangar Bachchan
23	2006	Pasa Kiligal	Maragatham	Tamil	Prabhu,Murali, Vineeth	Amritham	The film was fully written and directed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M. Karunanidhi, as it was a comeback film for the director-cum-politician.
24		Amirtham	Amirtha Ramaswamy	Tamil	Ganesh	Kannan
25		Pathaaka	Ashitha Muhammed	Malayalam	Suresh Gopi	K. Madhu
26		Kalabham	Sivakami	Malayalam	Bala	Anil K Nair
27	2007	Maya Kannadi	Maheswari	Tamil	Cheran	Cheran
28		Ali Bhai	Chenthamara	Malayalam	Mohanlal	Shaji Kailas
29		Kichamani MBA	Shivani Menon	Malayalam	Suresh Gopi, jayasurya	Samad Mangada
30	2008	Gaja	Shwetha	Kannada	Darshan	K. Madesh	First Kannada film
31		Sila Nerangalil	Thamarai Chidambaram, Anjali	Tamil	Vincent Ashok	Jayaraj
32		SMS	Indhumathi	Malayalam	Bala	Surjulan
33		Raman Thediya Seethai	Senthamarai	Tamil	Cheran	K P Jegannath	Guest appearance
34		Kavyam	Uma	Malayalam	Suresh Gopi	Anish and Santosh
35	2009	Aadum Koothu	Manimeghalai	Tamil	Cheran	T.V.Chandran
36		Banaras	Devu	Malayalam	Vineeth	Nemom Pushparaj
37		Nam Yajamanru	Charulatha	Kannada	Dr.Vishnuvardhan	T. S. Nagabharana
38		Calendar	Kochurani	Malayalam	Prithviraj, Mukesh	Mahesh
39		Ivar Vivahitharayal	Navya Nair	Malayalam	Jayasurya	Saji Surendran	Special appearance
40		Bhagyadha Balegaara	Cheluvi	Kannada	Shivaraj Kumar	Saiprakash
41		Kerala Cafe	Sheela Johnykutty	Malayalam	Dileep	M Padmakumar(Nostalgia)	For the first time in the history of Malayalam cinema, one film was conceived by a team of ten directors.
42		Violet	Suchitra	Malayalam	Suresh Gopi	M Sabarish
43	2010	Drona 2010	Mithra Antarjanam	Malayalam	Mammootty	Shaji Kailas
44		Yugapurushan	Savitri Antarjanam	Malayalam	Mammootty, Kalabhavan Mani	R Sukumaran
45		Rasikkum Seemane	Gayathri	Tamil	Srikanth	RK Vidyadaran
46		Sadgamaya	Yamuna	Malayalam	Suresh Gopi	HariKumar
47	2011	Boss	Raani	Kannada	Darshan	Reghu Raj
48	2012	Scene Onnu Nammude Veedu	manju	malyalam	Lal	Shaiju Anthikadu	came back to films after marriage

External links

• About actress Navya Nair
• Navya Nair at IMDb