Joy Mathew is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter and theatre artist who works in the Malayalam film industry. He started out in theatre and made his acting debut in the 1986 Malayalam arthouse film Amma Ariyan, which has since attained a cult classic status among cinephiles in Kerala. After nearly two decades, Joy made his comeback to Mollywood in 2013 as a writer-director, with the black comedy thriller film Shutter.
The film was critically and commercially successful, and has since been remade into six other languages. Joy marked his return to acting with the 2013 romantic drama Annayum Rasoolum, and has since established himself as a popular supporting and character actor through his performances in films like Amen (2013), Philips and the Monkey Pen (2013) and 1983 (2014). Other significant acting credits include Vikramadithyan (2014), Njaan (2014), Charlie (2015) and Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol (2017), Melle (2017), Onpatham Valavinappuram (2017), Street Lights (2018), Uncle (2018), Chalakkudikkaran Changathi (2018), Vakathirivu (2019), Naan Petta Makan (2019) and Thelivu (2019).