Suhasini Mani Ratnam Biography

Suhasini Mani Ratnam, commonly known as Suhasini, is an award winning south Indian actress. She made her film debut in 1980 with the Tamil movie Nenjathai Killathe.

Suhasini was born in Chennai, the daughter of actor Charu Hasan - the elder brother of Kamal Hassan. In 1988, she married Mani Ratnam. The couple has a son. Suhasini is a trained costumer designer, hairstylist and cinematographer. And she is the first girl student to graduate from the Madras Film Institute.

In 1996, Suhasini stepped into direction, helming her first film Indira. She also wrote the screenplay for the film. The project was produced by G.V films. She and husband Mani Ratnam are both involved in the running of their production company Madras Talkies, along with G. Srinivasan.

She won the coveted National Film Award for Best Actress in 1986 for her role in the 1985 Tamil film Sindhu Bhairavi, directed by K. Balachander.

She has acted in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada as well as Malayalam films. She was introduced to Malayalam cinema through Padmarajan's Koodevide 1983, which also featured Mammootty. Her role in the AFI Fest nominated feature film Vaanaprastham (1999), which starred Mohanlal, was particularly well received.

She is also a very talented make-up artist and hairstylist. Suhasini has helped her co-stars who were equally popular like Radhika, Radha, Vijayashanthi, Sumalatha and Ambika on their makeup and hair. She even volunteered to do Radhika's hair for the movie, "Keladi Kanmani", a sort of come-back movie for Radhika. She was very instrumental in getting Radhika back to cinema after the latter succumbed to some personal problems.