Prabhu Deva

Prabhu Deva (born on 3 April 1973) is an Indian dance choreographer, movie director, producer, and actor. He mainly works in Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu movies, and has also acted in a few Kannada and Malayalam movies. His career has lasted over 32 years. He is known for creating and performing different dance styles. He has won two National Film Awards for Best Choreography. In 2019, he received the Padma Shri, one of India’s top honors, for his work in dance.^[3][4]

Prabhu Deva
Deva at the promotion of Rowdy Rathore in 2012
Born	(1973-04-03) 3 April 1973 (age 52)[1][2] Mysore, Mysore State, India (present-day Karnataka, India)
Occupations	Actor director dance choreographer producer
Years active	1991–present
Works	Full list
Spouses	Ramlath ​ ​ (m. 1995; div. 2011)​ Himani Singh ​ (m. 2020)​
Children	4
Father	Mugur Sundar
Relatives	Raju Sundaram (brother) Nagendra Prasad (brother)
Honours	Padma Shri (2019)

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Prabhu Deva acted in many hit movies like Kadhalan (1994), Love Birds (1996), Minsara Kanavu (1997), and VIP (1997). He also gave good performances in movies like Kaathala Kaathala (1998), Vanathai Pola (2000), Pennin Manathai Thottu (2000), Alli Thandha Vaanam (2001), and Engal Anna (2004). After that, his movies did not do well, and he started acting in smaller roles in Tamil movies. Later, he became a successful director with the Telugu movie Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana in 2005. The success of this movie helped him get more directing offers. He then directed many hit movies in Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi like Pokkiri (2007), Shankar Dada Zindabad (2007), Wanted (2009), Rowdy Rathore (2012), R... Rajkumar (2013), and Singh is Bliing (2015).^[5]

Early life

Prabhu Deva was born on 3 April 1973 in Mysore, which was then part of Mysore State (now in Karnataka), to Mugur Sundar and Mahadevamma Sundar. He was inspired by his father Mugur Sundar, who was a dance choreographer in South Indian movies. Because of this, Prabhu Deva started learning dance. He learned Indian classical dance, like Bharatanatyam, from teachers Dharmaraj and Udupi Lakshminarayanan, and also learned Western dance styles.^[6][7]

Honours

Year	Award	Category	Ref.
2015	Kalaimamani Award	Tamil Film Industry Contribution	[8]
2019	Padma Shri	Padma Shri in the field of art-dance	[9]

Awards

Year	Award	Movie	Language	Category	Result	Ref.
1994	Nandi Awards	Rakshana	Telugu	Best Choreography	Won	[10]
1997	National Film Awards	Minsara Kanavu	Tamil		Won	[11]
2004		Lakshya	Hindi		Won	[12]
	Filmfare Awards				Won	[13]
	Nandi Awards	Varsham	Telugu		Won	[14]
2005	Filmfare Awards South	Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana			Won	[15]
2007	Vijay Awards	Pokkiri	Tamil	Favourite Director	Won	[16]
2018	Zee Cine Awards Tamil	Maari 2		Best Choreography	Won	[17]