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Early life

Shamili is from a family of actors, being the younger sister to actor Richard Rishi and actress Shalini. She was born to Babu and Alice. Her father migrated to Madras with an ambition of becoming an actor and the family settled there. Later he fulfilled his ambition through his children.

Career

Shamili started acting at the age of two in Tamil Cinema. Her breakthrough in Tamil came with Mani Ratnam's Anjali, in which she portrayed a mentally challenged child, which earned her the National Film Award for Best Child Artist. In 1990, she acted in Bharathan's Malootty, a film based on Jessica McClure. Her performance won her critical appreciation and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. She also acted as a teenager in Fazil's Harikrishnans as Mammooty and Mohanlal's sibling. In Kannada she has acted with actors Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh, Sithara, Shruti, Srinath, Geetha, Meghna, Vinaya Prasad, Sunil, Sathyapriya, Bhavya, Lakshmi and Abhijith. In Kannada, she acted in Dakshayini (1993), Kadambari (1993), Karulina Kudi (1995), Bhairavi (1991), Chinna Nee Naguthiru (1993), Bhuvaneshwari (1994), Mathe Haditu Kogile (1990), Hoovu Hannu (1993) and Jagadeshwari (1998).
She played her first female lead role in Anand Ranga's directorial debut Oye! (2009) alongside Siddarth, though the film's mixed response at the box office prompted her to embark on another sabbatical. Between 2010 and 2015, Shamili studied and worked in Singapore, and later returned to Chennai to work on the production of Veera Shivaji alongside Vikram Prabhu in 2016.