Madhavan was born on June 1, 1970, in a Tamil-speaking family.At the age of 18 his college entrusted him with the responsibility of representing India as a Cultural Ambassador to Canada.A year later he and three others from his college were sent to Britain as army cadets and received training in the royal army, navy, and Air Force.While conducting courses on public speaking, he met Saritha, an Air Hostess and both got 7 years later. Their first child, a son, Vedaant, was born in 2005.A vegetarian and animal lover he is a brand ambassador for PETA. He is fluent in English, Hindi, and Tamil.Before making his appearance on the tinsel screen, he was popular on the idiot box on Sony's Deal Ya No Deal (2005). Having done close to 1800 episodes of various soaps on varied National Networks, he subsequently also appeared as the main character in a mobile game.He made his debut with Inferno (1997) in 1998, and since then acted in nearly 48 movies in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Kannada. He is popularly known as the 'chocolate hero'.