Shamlee, also known as Baby Shamili/Shamlee, (born 10 July 1987), is an Indian actress who has worked in

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

, Tamil,

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

, and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

films. Her roles include the mentally challenged child Anjali in the 1990 film '' Anjali'', for which she won the National Film Award for Best Child Artist, and a child trapped inside a bore-well in the film '' Malootty'', which won her a Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. She has also won the Karnataka State Film Award for Best Child Actor (Female) for her performance in her Kannada debut Mathe Haditu Kogile.

Early life

Shamlee is from a family of actors, being the younger sister to actor

Richard Rishi Richard Rishi is an Indian actor who predominantly appears in Tamil and Telugu films and few Malayalam and Kannada films. He is known for Koottu, ''A Film by Aravind'' and his controversial caste movies with director Mohan G, namely '' Draupa ...

and actress Shalini. She was born to Babu and Alice. Her father migrated to

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...

with an ambition of becoming an actor and the family settled there. Later he fulfilled his ambition through his children.

Career

Shamlee started acting at the age of two in

Tamil Cinema Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood is a part of Indian Cinema; primarily engaged in production of motion pictures in the Tamil language. Based out of the Kodambakkam neighbourhood in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, it is popularly called ''Kollywo ...

with the Vijaykanth starrer '' Rajanadai''. In 1990, she acted in

Bharathan Bharathan (14 November 1946 – 30 July 1998) was an Indian film maker, artist, and art director. Bharathan is noted for being the founder of a new school of film making in Malayalam cinema, along with Padmarajan and K. G. George, in ...

's '' Malootty'', a film based on Jessica McClure. Her performance won her critical appreciation and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. Her breakthrough came with

Mani Ratnam Gopala Ratnam Subramaniam (born 2 June 1956), known professionally as Mani Ratnam, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in Tamil cinema and few Hindi, Telugu and Kannada films. Ratnam has won six Nat ...

's '' Anjali'', in which she portrayed a mentally challenged child, which earned her widespread critical acclaim across South India and the National Film Award for Best Child Artist. At that time, Shamlee was regarded as one of the youngest income tax assessees ever. After '' Anjali,'' Shamlee became inarguably the most sought out child artist in South Indian cinema and, thus in subsequent years, acted in many roles in all four South Indian languages. In 2009, she played her first female lead role in Anand Ranga's directorial debut '' Oye!'' (2009) alongside Siddarth with her performance receiving a mixed response. Between 2010 and 2015, Shamili studied and worked in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and later returned to Chennai to work on the production of '' Veera Shivaji'' alongside

Vikram Prabhu Vikram Prabhu is an Indian actor working in Tamil language films who made his debut in Prabhu Solomon's '' Kumki'' (2012). He also played the protagonist in ''Ivan Veramathiri'' (2013) and '' Vellaikaara Durai'' (2014). He is the son of actor P ...

in 2016, which was panned by critics. Her performance also received negative reviews with indiaglitz claiming “Shamlee gets a forgettable debut as a heroine in Tamil. Her lip sync is poor and the scenes involving her do no help her either”. and sify also stating she is “as stiff as a wax statue with barely any emotion”. Shamili also acted in the Malayalam film '' Valleem Thetti Pulleem Thetti'' the same year, which was also panned and received negative reviews.

Filmography

As child artist

As lead actress

References

External links

* , - ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" , National Film Award , - , - {{Authority control Indian film actresses Actresses from Chennai Living people Actresses in Malayalam cinema Actresses in Tamil cinema Actresses in Telugu cinema Tamil Nadu State Film Awards winners 21st-century Indian actresses Indian child actresses Kerala State Film Award winners Child actresses in Kannada cinema Child actresses in Tamil cinema Child actresses in Telugu cinema Child actresses in Malayalam cinema Best Child Artist National Film Award winners 1987 births