Prashanth Birthday Special

Prashanth is the son of yesteryear actor, director and producer, Thyagarajan. Prashanth made his screen debut at the age of 17 when he played the lead role in the 1990 film Vaigasi Porandhaachu. The success of this film saw him play the lead in Balu Mahendra’s Vanna Vanna Pookkal, RK Selvamani’s Sembaruthi and Maniratnam’s action adventure film, Thiruda Thiruda.

After the success of Aaanazhagan, Prashanth was hoping to replicate the success of Thiruda Thiruda with his first collaboration with Ajithkumar, Kalloori Vaasal, but the film tanked at the box-office.

In 1998, Prashanth accepted an offer to play dual roles for Shankar’s Jeans, a role that had been rejected by Ajithkumar and Abbas. Backed by Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj, whose many film credits include Jean-Claude van Damme’s Double Impact, Jeans was – at the time of its release –the most expensive Indian film ever produced. The film was a global hit and boosted the success of his subsequent films – Kannedhirey Thondrinaal opposite Simran and Kaadhal Kavidhai opposite Isha Koppikar.

Prashanth had mixed success with his subsequent films, but bounced back with the film Thamizh.which marked the directorial debut of Hari.

After moderate success in subsequent movies, Prashanth decided to focus more on films produced or directed by his father. This, in retrospect, was not a wise decision, as many of these films did not fare well at the box-office. Poor script choices for other roles, saw his popularity dive after a series of uneventful films. His attempts at a comeback through a series of remakes from other languages have not been successful.

His role in Venkat Prabhu’s The Greatest of all Time, received a lot of attention from a new generation of film-goers and a role that won him much praise from film critics.