Meet the actor who was once rejected for his looks and later received Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan for his acting

MUMBAI: Megastar actor, who is popularly known for his work in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada films, has been entertaining us with his films for many years. But do you know the actor who has received a lot of praise from his fans, was once rejected for his looks? He was given only 2 marks out of 100 during his audition.

Today, Mohanlal Viswanathan is celebrating his 64th birthday. Let’s take a look at his incredible journey on his birthday.  

The actor was born on 21 May 1960 in Kerala. He is the youngest child of Viswanathan Nair and Santhakumari. His elder brother, Pyarelal, died in 2000 during a military exercise.

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Mohanlal had earned a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Mahatma Gandhi College. His first acting role was in sixth grade, where he played the role of a ninety-year-old man in a stage play. Mohanalal had also achieved praise in wrestling as he was the Kerala state wrestling champion in 1977 and 1978.

Mohanlal made his acting debut in the 1978 film Thiranottam, which he produced with his friends Maniyanpilla Raju, Suresh Kumar, Unni, Priyadarshan, Ravi Kumar, and others. In the film, he played a character of Kuttappan, who is a mentally disabled servant. However, due to censorship issues, Thiranottam was postponed and came to the silver screen 25 years later.

In 1980, Mohanlal played the antagonist in Manjil Virinja Pookkal, helmed by Fazil. The film was a super hit. Filmmaker Fazil mentioned in an interview that the actor had to audition for his role. During the audition, two directors on the dice were not impressed with Mohanlal's looks and personality and gave him only 2 marks out of 100 and they rejected him. Although Filmmaker Fazil insisted on casting him in the film, which turned out to be a super hit and made Mohanlal popular.

After the success of this film, the actor went on to play villainous roles in around 25 films. In 1986, Mohanlal was at the peak of his career, as his film was released every 15 days. In a single year he had worked in 34 films, setting a record where no other actor has matched. Mohanalal had also received many honourable awards including the Padma Shri in 2001 and Padma Bhushan in 2019.

Also read : L2 Empuraan: Prthiviraj Sukumaran shares the poster of Mohanlal’s first look as Khureshi Abraam on his birthday: Check it out

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Credit: DNA