Anant Nag was born on September 4, 1948, in a small village called Shirali in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka. He comes from a ‘Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin’ (Konkani-speaking Hindu Brahmin) family. He was the middle child, having an elder sister and a younger brother.
He did his schooling in Udupi, Mysore, and eventually moved to Mumbai for ninth standard, aiming for armed services, but was rejected from both the Army and the Air Force for being underweight and having poor eyesight. But there he found his passion for theatre, where he started acting in Konkani, Kannada, and Marathi language plays of Satyadev Dubey, Girish Karnad, and Amol Palekar, which he continued to do till 22.
After theatre, he slowly ventured into films by making his debut in the 1973 Kannada film ‘Sankalpa’. He quickly rose to fame in this period, especially in Shyam Benegal's movies.
His renowned work in GV Iyer’s ‘Hamsageethe’ (1975) earned him great acclaim, making the film win a National Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada.
He also acted in a television series aired on Doordarshan called ‘Malgudi Days’, which was directed by his younger brother Shankar, who was also a director and actor, before his demise in 1990.
As for his personal life, Nag got married to Gayatri in 1987, and the couple has one daughter named Aditi.
Apart from his filmography, Nag also ventured into politics, serving as a Member of the Legislative Council, Member of the Legislative Assembly, and also as a minister in the JH Patel government in Karnataka. In 2023, Nag was announced to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a special event, which was later cancelled by the party.
He has won five Best Actor and one lifetime achievement award from the Karnataka State Film Awards.
Apart from Kannada, he has also won Best Actor awards in Telugu and Kannada, while also acting in Malayalam, Tamil, and English. Overall, he has acted in over 300 films in his career.
He was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan award in 2025, India’s third-highest civilian honour.
In 2026, he won the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, India’s highest honour given for lifetime contributions to the Indian film industry.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi among others congratulated him on his achievement.
(This story was compiled by Aaron Philip Keechireth).