Vijay (born Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar on 22 June 1974)^[2] is an Indian actor, playback singer and producer, who works in the Tamil film industry. Son of film director and producer S. A. Chandrasekhar, he started his career as a child actor in the movie Vetri and later made his debut as a lead actor in the 1992 film Naalaya Theerpu. He launched the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam, a social welfare organisation in 2009. Vijay was listed #49 in Forbes India's "Celebrity 100 List" for the year 2013.^[3]
Vijay was born in Chennai to a film producer and director S. A. Chandrasekhar and Shoba Chandrasekhar, a playback singer. He had a sister named Vidhya Chandrasekhar who died at the age of two. Vijay went on to do Visual Communications at Loyola College, Chennai.

Vijay married Sangeetha Sornalingam of Sri Lankan Tamil descent on 25 August 1999.^[32] They have two children, a son Sanjay born in 2000 in London,^[33] and a daughter Divya born in 2005 in Chennai. His son's name was a combination of the names Sangeetha and Vijay in which the first three letters of Sangeetha was taken and the last three letters of Vijay was taken. Also, his daughter's name Divya is derived from the name of his late sister, Vidya.
His cousin Vikranth is an actor. His uncle S. N. Surender is a playback singer and dubbing artist.