Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan (born 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, and politician whose six-decade career — Nayakan, Moondram Pirai, Indian, Vikram — made him one of the towering figures of Tamil cinema. He has long been its restless technologist, pioneering prosthetics, digital workflows, and India’s early adoption of new production formats.

Back to school at 69

In September 2024, after wrapping Indian 2 — in which flashback sequences recreated his younger self through digital de-aging by Lola VFX, the Hollywood studio behind similar work on Avengers: Endgame — Haasan flew to the United States to enroll in a 90-day artificial-intelligence course, planning to attend 45 days between work commitments. He had earlier explained the impulse: “I have a deep interest in new technology… you can often see my films experimenting with the latest technological developments.”

The immersion continued in April 2025 with a visit to Perplexity AI headquarters in San Francisco, where he met CEO Aravind Srinivas and posted: “Curiosity didn’t kill the cat — it created @aravindsrinivas and @perplexity.ai!” Reflecting on the study trip to India Today, he was candid that AI’s depth humbled him — “it’s beyond me and beyond all of us” — and that cinema-grade visual AI is “at a nascent stage.” He also pointed to A.R. Rahman’s AI recreation of deceased singers’ voices as work by someone who understands the tools more deeply.

Haasan’s enthusiasm comes fenced with caution: he insists AI must not be touched “without proper understanding” and should be studied before it is allowed to shape creative work. But his bottom line is adoption, not resistance — AI, he says, will be in everyone’s life, like the computer, and is nothing to fear.