Amala Paul  is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. She made her acting debut in the Malayalam film Neelathamara (2009). She won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress for playing the title role in Mynaa (2010).

Amala was praised for her roles in films such as Deiva Thirumagal (2011), Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi (2012), Run Baby Run (2012), Oru Indian Pranayakadha (2013), Thalaivaa (2013), Velaiilla Pattadhari (2014) and Mili (2015), for which she won the Filmfare Best Actress Critics – Malyalam. She went onto establish herself with successful films - Amma Kanakku (2016), Hebbuli (2017), Thiruttu Payale 2 (2017), Ratsasan (2018), Aadai (2019) and The Teacher (2022).

Early life

• Amala Paul was born on 26 October 1991 in Ernakulam, Kerala. Amala belongs to a Christian family, and was born to Paul Varghese (d. 2017) and Annice Paul. Her brother Abijith Paul also appeared in films following Amala's entry into the film industry. After completing her schooling from Nirmala Higher Secondary School Aluva, she took a sabbatical to begin a career in films, but has since joined St. Teresa's College in Kochi, to pursue a B.A. degree in English.
• Amala's father had been strictly against Amala pursuing an acting career, but was forced to accept her decision with her brother strongly backing her ambition. She later claimed that she had performing arts in her, revealing that her mother was a singer and her dad was into theatre in college.

Career

2009–2010: Early career

• After finishing studies, Lal Jose offered her a supporting role in his film, Neelathamara (2009). Despite emerging a success, the film failed to attract any further offers, as she had anticipated.
• She pursued roles in Tamil films and went on to sign for the low-budget comedy film Vikadakavi, which was delayed and ultimately became her sixth release, while also signing on to play the lead role in another small budget film Veerasekaran (2010). 
• Paul then went on to work in Samy's controversial Sindhu Samaveli (2010), portraying the role of Sundari, who has an illicit relationship with her father-in-law. She was approached after the major portions of her next release, Mynaa were ready, and signed on for Sindhu Samaveli before listening to the entirety of the story, claiming that she was shocked but not upset with the controversial scenes which she heard later.
• Paul's next release, the romantic drama film Mynaa (2010), by Prabhu Solomon, made her a recognised actress in the industry. The film had garnered much anticipation prior to release, with noted distributors Udhayanidhi Stalin and Kalpathi S.

2011–2019: Experimentation and success

• Following the success of the Tamil film, Mynaa, Paul became touted as the "new top star of 2011" as she subsequently signed on to several prominent projects. 
• Paul's first release of 2012 was in Lingusamy's Vettai, alongside Arya, Madhavan and Sameera Reddy. The film opened to critical and commercial acclaim with The New York Times claiming that the film "entertains without breaking any new ground, though it can also surprise".
• The actress had three films released on the Valentine's Day weekend of 2012, with Balaji Mohan's bilingual Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi / Love Failure becoming critical and commercial successes. The film, made in Tamil and Telugu, featured her alongside Siddharth and portrayed her as a college girl, Parvathi, showing her romantic skills. 
• In 2013, Paul achieved her first commercial success in Telugu cinema. Her first release in 2013, V. V. Vinayak's directorial Naayak, opposite Ram Charan, went on to be one of the biggest critical as well as commercial successes of the year.
• In 2014, her first release was Samuthirakani's Nimirndhu Nil, opposite Jayam Ravi, which was simultaneously shot in Telugu as Janda Pai Kapiraju, in which Nani reprised the role of Jayam Ravi. Her next release Velaiilla Pattadhari, opposite Dhanush was a success in Tamil Nadu and her performance was appreciated.
• In later 2017, she had two releases in Tamil Velaiilla Pattadhari 2 and Thiruttu Payale 2 both did well in the box office. Amala had signed to play lead roles in Malayalam films Zam Zam and Kayamkulam Kochunni but later opted out of both as she has signed Tamil films like Bhaskar Oru Rascal (2018), Ratsasan (2018) and Aadai (2019).

2021–present

In 2021, she appeared in anthology film with Kutty Story and Pitta Kathalu. She next seen in web series, Kudi Yedamaithe in Telegu, Ranjish Hi Sahi in Hindi and Victim: Who is Next? in Tamil. The OTT film, Cadaver (2022), which is an investigative thriller was released on Disney+ Hotstar on 12 August.

Personal life

• Paul had changed her on-screen name to Anakha, on director Samy's insistence, who cited that another actress, Amala had already made her name popular. However, after the failure of her 2011 film Sindhu Samaveli, she reverted to her birth name, since she felt that the replacement had brought her bad luck.
• As early as 2011, when Paul was working on Deiva Thirumagal, she was romantically linked to director A. L. Vijay, but denied that the pair were dating. On 7 June 2014, she got engaged to Vijay at Aluva in Kochi. The couple got married on 12 June 2014 at Mayor Ramanathan Chettiar Hall, Chennai. In 2016, Amala and Vijay filed for a divorce due to disagreement between her and her in-laws on continuing her acting career. They divorced in 2017.
• In January 2018, Paul was arrested for tax evasion. A crime branch investigation had found that she had registered her luxury car in Puducherry with fake documents. Later, the case was closed citing jurisdictional issues.

Awards