Fahadh Faasil was one of the first actors to bring this new wave of experimental films with unconventional scripts and storylines to the Malayalam film industry. Faasil, who is the son of renowned southern film-maker AM Fazil, pursued his career after securing his MA in Philosophy from the University of Miami. Faasil left the beaches of Miami for the backwaters of Kerala and returned home, where he started his career as an actor in Malayalam movies.

Faasil first caught the audience’s attention with his role as Arjun in the thriller Chaappa Kurishu in 2011 and went on to give another unforgettable performance in the highly-acclaimed 22 Female Kottayam. Both these films managed to shake the Malayalam film industry quite a bit, for the good. The films introduced Kerala’s film audience to characters that no established actor would want to portray on screen. Since then, he went on to play some of his most career-defining roles in films like Annayum Rasoolum, Artist, North 24 Kaatham, Bangalore Days, Take Off and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, which earned him his first National Award. He started off 2019 playing an overprotective and inquisitive brother-in-law in the wildly-successful Kumbalangi Nights which he also produced. Then we saw him in the Tamil wild-ride thriller Super Deluxe portraying a simple man in a complicated position. Super Deluxe went on to become one of the best releases of this year and earned Faasil critical acclaim and praises. His latest film was Anthira, which didn’t really leave a mark on audiences with its psychological horror narrative, but he’s looking to change that with his upcoming film Trance, which is set to release late December. He is currently working on two projects for 2020, Maalik and Thankam, a crime drama, which will be produced by Faasil himself.

While a lot of actors lose their initial vision and stray into the commercial side of film-making, Faasil is still going strong on his path. He’s not looking to be involved in masala South Indian movies with flying cars and cheesy storylines. In fact, he believes in doing the exact opposite. He made his interests very clear in the beginning, which attracted Southern film-makers with unconventional scripts to fearlessly approach him. Along with being a prolific actor, Faasil’s new role as a producer allows him to take things in his own hands by taking control of the wheel and changing the direction of Southern cinema.