The Unscripted Legend

In Mohanlal’s iconic performances, audiences saw not a distant superstar but a relatable everyman whose emotional register was complex and authentic.

The announcement that Mohanlal, Malayalam cinema’s most luminous star, has been honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest cinematic distinction, surprised few. For four decades, the actor has been a constant presence on screen, capable of slipping as easily into the skin of a rustic villager as a suave corporate baron, a tortured romantic, or a wily underworld don. To most Malayalis and to a growing pan-Indian audience, he is not merely a performer but a cultural institution.

For Mohanlal, the Phalke Award is the crowning of a career that has defined modern Malayalam cinema. When he first appeared in ManjilVirinjaPookkal (1980) as a smirking villain, the industry did not know it was witnessing the arrival of a phenomenon. By the mid-1980s he had become the quintessential leading man, though without the conventional angular features or strapping build of a matinee idol. His ordinariness became his strength. In films like Thoovanathumbikal (1987) or Chithram (1988), audiences saw not a distant superstar but a relatable everyman whose emotional register was vast, complex and authentic.

It is this ordinariness that allowed Mohanlal to span genres with ease. He could play the tragic hero in Bharathan’s Amaram, the comic schemer in Priyadarshan’s Kilukkam, or the anguished father in Thanmathra, which dealt with Alzheimer’s disease. Few actors in Indian cinema have matched his ability to make both slapstick and Shakespearean tragedy seem natural extensions of the same craft. By the 1990s, he was not just the face of Malayalam cinema but also one of its most bankable stars, leading films that broke regional boundaries.

His career is also a study in how regional cinema adapted to India’s changing cultural economy. Mohanlal was among the first Malayalam actors to consciously bridge the gap between local authenticity and national reach. His roles in big-budget productions such as Vanaprastham (which was screened at Cannes) demonstrated an appetite for global recognition. Later, collaborations in Tamil and Hindi cinema broadened his appeal, even if his heart remained firmly anchored in Kerala’s cultural soil.

For Bollywood audiences accustomed to larger-than-life stars, Mohanlal offered something different: a naturalistic actor who could inhabit characters without theatricality. His appearances in Hindi films such as Company (2002), where he played a measured and quietly intimidating police officer earned him recognition among critics and Hindi-speaking viewers. Though his ventures in Bollywood were relatively few, they left an impression of an actor capable of subtlety and gravitas, qualities sometimes scarce in mainstream Hindi cinema.

Streaming platforms have since extended this recognition, drawing new audiences who discover his Malayalam classics through subtitles. No film better exemplifies this crossover than Drishyam (2013). The thriller, in which Mohanlal plays an unassuming cable TV operator who outwits the police to protect his family, became a cultural phenomenon. Its remakes in multiple Indian languages (including the Hindi version starring Ajay Devgn) testify to the story’s universal appeal. But it was Mohanlal’s understated performance, blending vulnerability with quiet cunning, that gave the original its haunting power.

The digital revolution only sharpened his instincts. Mohanlal embraced OTT platforms early, recognising that streaming would extend Malayalam cinema’s influence far beyond state and diaspora audiences. His ventures into hospitality and entrepreneurship further reinforced his image as a man who understood that stardom in the 21st century required more than acting talent; it demanded business acumen. In this, Mohanlal became less a solitary genius and more a case study in how local icons can reshape the economics of cinema. Yet, even as his career soared, Mohanlal remained curiously self-effacing. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he resisted overt political positioning.

Mohanlal’s legacy is not only in the hundreds of roles he has embodied but in the way he expanded the horizons of Malayalam film itself. He proved that a regional star could command national and even international stature without diluting the particularities of his cultural roots. He helped create a space where Malayalam cinema could be simultaneously local in voice and global in ambition.

The Phalke Award often doubles as a career valedictory, a sign that the artist has entered the pantheon. But Mohanlal, now in his sixties, shows little inclination to retreat. His recent projects suggest an actor still eager to experiment, still capable of surprising audiences who thought they had seen every shade of his repertoire.