Kani Kusruti (Kani Kusruthi) is a famous Indian actress and model from Kerala who has acted in Hindi, English, Malayalam, Tamil, movies, and web series. She was born on 12 September 1985 in Cheruvakkal Village, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, to social activist parents. She first gained recognition in 2009 with the film Kerala Cafe, where her performance was critically acclaimed. Kani was born in Trivandrum, Kerala to social activist and rationalist parents Jayasree AK and Maitreya Maitreyan. Her parents had dropped their last names to erase the social hierarchy marker that comes with last names in India. At 15, she invented her last name "Kusruti" (meaning "mischievous" in Malayalam) to fill in a requirement in her class 10th exam application. She grew up in Thiruvananthapuram, where she got introduced to the Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre, "a common platform for theatre practitioners". She later moved to Thrissur, where she enrolled in the theatre arts program at the Thrissur Drama School, between 2005 and 2007. She completed her theatre education at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, where she studied physical theatre for two years.