Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai (born 21 March 1970) is an Indian actress and Bharatanatyam dancer. She acts predominantly in Malayalam films along with Telugu and Tamil films with a few Hindi, Kannada and English films. She has won two National Film Awards, one Kerala State Film Awards, two Filmfare Awards South, with 14 Nominations for Best Actress Category in three different south Indian languages, Tamil Nadu State's Kalaimamani Award in 2011 and numerous other awards. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress twice, for her performances in the Malayalam film Manichitrathazhu (1993) and the English film Mitr, My Friend (2001). Subsequent to the year 1999, Shobana turned extremely selective about her films. Shobana was trained under the Bharatanatyam dancers Chitra Visweswaran and Padma Subrahmanyam. She emerged as an independent performer and choreographer in her twenties and currently runs a dance school, Kalarpana, in Chennai. In 2006, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri for her contributions towards the arts. In 2014, the Kerala State Government honoured her with the Kala Ratna Award. In 2019, she was bestowed an honorary doctorate from Dr. M.G.R. Educational and Research Institute. In 2022, she was bestowed a Doctor of Letters degree from Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit. Personal life She is the niece of the Travancore sisters – Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, all of whom were Indian classical dancers and actresses. Shobhana is single. In 2011, she became a single-parent mother to a girl child named Anantha Narayani Chandrakumar through adoption. Career Film career Shobana made her debut as a child artist. She had a major role in the Tamil movie Mangala Nayagi in 1980 directed by Krishnan–Panju, starring Srikanth and K. R. Vijaya, which was the remake of the Hindi film Saajan Bina Suhagan, for which she won the Best Child Artiste Award. She also starred in the Telugu film Bhakta Dhruva Markendaya in 1982, an acclaimed all children film made in both Tamil and Telugu. As an adult, she was introduced to the film industry through the Malayalam film April 18, by director Balachandra Menon. Her realistic portrayal of a simple girl-next-door appealed to audiences and she went on to work in numerous films. In the same year, she entered the Tamil film industry and acted in Enakkul Oruvan, directed by SP Muthuraman. Enakkul Oruvan didn't perform well at the box office and Shobana's commercial landing was stalled