Rajnikanth, also spelled Rajnikant, original name Shivaji Rao Gaikwad, (born December 12, 1950, Bangalore, Mysore [now Bengaluru, Karnataka], India), Indian actor whose unique mannerisms and stylized line delivery made him one of the leading stars of Tamil cinema. With roles in more than 150 films, he also enjoyed considerable success in Hindi, Telugu, and Kannada movies.

A film buff since his boyhood, Rajnikanth moved to Madras (now Chennai) in the early 1970s to join the Madras Film Institute, where he trained as an actor. He made his debut in 1975, playing a minor role in Katha Sangama, a film directed by Kannada director Puttanna Kanagal. That same year he achieved a major breakthrough when he was offered the role of a villain in K. Balachander’s Tamil-language film Apoorva Raagangal.

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For the next three years, Rajnikanth continued to play characters considered morally dubious within the ethical framework of conventional Tamil cinema. In Bhairavi (1978), however, Rajnikanth was cast as Mookaiyah, a loyal manservant who fails to protect his long-lost sister from his master and later takes revenge upon the man. This role was Rajnikanth’s first as a leading man. Subsequent leading roles in films such as Billa (1980), in which he played a ruthless mafia don, and Murattu Kaalai (1980), in which his character, a dutiful milkman, saves a woman from the man she was supposed to marry, cemented his career as an action superstar. Rajnikanth made his

debut in Hindi cinema in 1983, with a role in Andhaa Kanoon, a film that paired him with Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan. He acted with Bachchan in two other Hindi films, including Mukul Anand’s Hum (1991).

Rajnikanth went on to star in many of India’s largest blockbuster films, including Moondru Mugam (1982), Thalapathi (1991), Baasha (1995), Padayappa (1999), and the science-fiction thriller Enthiran (2010) and its sequel, 2.0 (2018); in the latter two movies he played both the robot Chitti Babu and its creator Dr. Vaseegaran. Rajnikanth’s acting style was characterized by unbridled exaggeration and pronounced mannerisms; his signature gesture—in which he deftly flipped a cigarette high in the air and caught it between his lips—was adored by his intensely devoted fans.

Rajnikanth won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor, the highest accolade for an actor in Tamil cinema, numerous times. In 2000 he received the Padma Bhushan for his contributions to Indian film.