Tabu (born Tabassum Hashmi), Indian film actress, born on November 4, 1971, in Hyderabad, India. Tabu started her career as a child in the film ‘Bazaar’, and later in ‘Hum Naujawan’ (1985) when she was fourteen.  She acted in several other movies without making much of a mark until ‘Vijaypath’ (1994) with Ajay Devgan.  Tabu received the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award for this film. In 1996, she won a National Film Award for Best Actress for portraying a woman caught in a Sikh insurgency, in ‘Maachis’.  In 1997, she won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance for the movie ‘Virasat’. Other award-winning films are: ‘Hu Tu Tu’ (1999), ‘Astitva’ (2000), ‘Chandni Bar’ (2001), and ‘Cheeni Kum (2007).  She won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress as Shahid Kapoor’s mother in the Vishal Bhardwaj version of Hamlet, ‘Haider’ (2014). More recently, Tabu appeared in ‘Drishyam’ (2015), ‘Golmaal Again’ (2017), and received critical acclaim as a murdering wife in ‘Andhadhun’ (2018). In 2020, she appeared in two successful movies: ‘Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo’ (Telugu), as Alu Arjun’s mother, and in ‘Jawaani Jaaneman’ as Saif Ali Khan’s ex. Tabu has also done two Hollywood movies, ‘The Namesake’ and ‘Life of Pi’, as well as Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi and Bengali films. In 2011, Tabu was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for her contribution to cinema.