Navya Nair was born on 14 October 1985 to Raju and Veena Raju. She hails from Cheppad, a village near Harippad in Alleppey District. The film director K. Madhu is her uncle. She studied at Bethany Balikamadom High School, Nangiarkulangara till 10th grade and then at MSM Higher Secondary School, where her mother was a teacher. She is an MBA graduate. She married a Mumbai-based businessman, Santhosh Menon, on 21 January 2010 and they have a son Sai Krishna, born on 22 November 2010.
She was still in school when she was offered her first film role, starring opposite Dileep in Ishtam in 2001. That was followed up with roles in partnership with Dileep, in films such as Mazhathullikkilukkam, Kunjikoonan, Kalyanaraman, Pandippada, Gramaphone and Pattanathil Sundaran. The most popular character of Navya is "Balamani" in Nandanam. She won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress and the prestigious Filmfare Award for Best Actress - Malayalam in 2002 for the same. She has been paired with Mohanlal, Mammooty, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Dileep, Prithviraj and Jayasurya. She acted in Saira and Kanne Madanguka and commercial films. Saira was the opening film in the section "Tous Les Cinemas Du Monde" at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2007, which was the 4th Malayalam film screened at the Cannes International Film Festival. 'Saira' participated in 21 other international film festivals such as those in USA, Brazil, Israel, Russia, Italy, Greece, Zimbabwe, Belgium, Bangladesh etc. She again won the state award for her performances in Kanne Madanguka and Saira. Her debut in Tamil cinema came with Azhagiya Theeye, but the most notable one was the 2009 Tamil movie Aadum Koothu, which won the National Award for the best Tamil film. The T. V. Chandran film revolved around a character called Manimekala, played by Navya Nair. She was considered for the National film award for Best Actress for the third time, the first two times being in 2002 for Nandanam and in 2005 for Saira. Her Kannada debut movie is Gaja, in which she shared the screen with actor Darshan and she had successive hits like Nam Yajamanaru and Boss. She has around 50 movies to her credit. After marriage, she stopped her full-time acting career. She came back to films with Scene Onnu Nammude Veedu in 2012. After a pause of almost 2 years, she did Drishya, a Kannada remake of Malayalam thriller Drishyam.
Television
After marriage she was a judge in Munch Dance Dance on Asianet and she hosted another reality show in Asianet Bharthakkanmarude Sradhaku. She has acted in some advertisements also. She also judged Sunfeast Delishus Star Singer Season 7 on Asianet. She also attended Badai Bungalow in the same channel. In 2016, she took part in Laughing Villa, a comedy reality show on Surya TV. ;Notable television appearances
Writing and dance career
She published an autobiography entitled Navya Rasangal. In 2018, she debuted her first directorial venture with dance video "Chinnamchiru Kiliye". The dance was her adaptation of the Tamil poet Bharathiyaar's poem of the same name. She took child trafficking as the theme for her work.
