Baburaj Jacob, mononymously known as Baburaj, is an Indian actor, director, and screenwriter who works predominantly in Malayalam cinema and has also appeared in Tamil and Hindi films. He began and established his career in cinema by playing antagonistic roles and graduated to comedic and character roles after the 2011 film Salt N' Pepper.^[2]

Baburaj was born to P. J. Jacob Oleekkal and T. I. Karmali Thottungal on 5 March 1966. Baburaj married twice. He has two sons from his first marriage named Abhay and Akshay.^[3] His second marriage is to South Indian action heroine Vani Viswanath. The couple has two children, a daughter named Aarcha and a son named Adhri. Baburaj is a lawyer. They reside at Kochi. On 14 Feb 2017, Baburaj was stabbed by one of his neighbours in Idukki following an argument.^[4]

Baburaj started his acting career as a junior artist. His debut in Malayalam was Beeshmacharyar (1994), directed by Cochin Haneefa, where he played a notorious villain. He also acted as a villain in the Hindi movie, Hulchul, which was a remake of the Malayalam blockbuster, Godfather. He produced four Malayalam movies and one Tamil movie.^[5]

In 2009, he debuted as a director in the Malayalam movie Black Dalia,^[6] starring Himself and Suresh Gopi in lead. He also directed the movie Manushyamrugam, starring Himself and Prithviraj Sukumaran in lead. His wife produced the movie.

In 2011, he did a comedy role in Salt N' Pepper, directed by Aashiq Abu. With this comedy role in Salt N' Pepper, he became one of the busiest actors in Malayalam cinema. He did one of the lead role in the crime thriller Manushyamrugam after the success of Salt N' Pepper. He did comedy roles in films such as Ordinary and Mayamohini. Apart from this, he was a lead actor in films such as Naughty Professor and DYSP Sankunni Uncle. Baburaj did a lead role in the 2017 comedy movie Honey Bee 2: Celebrations followed by Thrissivaperoor Kliptham, where he did the antagonist role. Baburaj's true potential to do the character roles was revealed with the film Koodasha.^[7] In this suspense revenge thriller film, he played the role of a father who seeks revenge against the persons killed his daughter. Baburaj's performance as Panakkal Jomon in the crime drama Joji (2021) was highly appreciated by the critics.^[8]

In 2021, he directed the comedy movie Black Coffee, which is a spin-off to Salt N' Pepper.^[9]

• Comedy stars season 2 (Asianet) as Judge
• Lunars Comedy Express (Asianet Plus) as Judge
• Kadamattathu Kathanar (Asianet)
• kudipaka-(Asianet)