Kavya Madhavan is a popular Malayalam cinema actress . Though she normally does regular unimportant heroine roles, she has proved her ability in handling serious roles as well.
Born in the village of Nileshwaram in Kasaragod district, Kerala, India to P. Madhavan and Shyamala. She started to learn dance while studying in Nileswaram Rajas High School. She was the kalathilakam (A title bestowed to the artist who proves her skills in most artistic fields during a Sub District youth festival) in Kasargod.
Kavya entered the industry as a child artist in the film Pookkalam Varavayi (1991) doing the role of a School Girl. She came to public attention when she did the childhood part of the heroine character in Kamal's Azhakiya Ravanan (1996). Since then, she has acted in over 25 films in Malayalam and a few in Tamil. She is noted for having retained her rural Nileshwaram accent. She is not allowed to dub for her movies because her voice does not fit the usual "sweet and soft" voice of typical dubbers. However, she recently has begun to dub for some of her roles, such as Perumazhakkalam.