Actor Jaideep Ahlawat has completed 10 long years in the Bollywood industry. He has played several interesting and memorable roles in movies and digital shows and is one of the most underrated actors in Bollywood today.
There are actors who entertain the audience, and then, there are actors who also leave a lasting impression with their effective portrayal of their on-screen characters in an entertaining way, and Jaideep Ahlawat is one such seasoned actor who certainly falls in the second category.
Jaideep’s romance with Hindi cinema started 10 years ago, with films like the multi-starrer Aakrosh and the Akshay Kumar-starrer Khatta Meetha. But it was Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur (in which he played the role of Shahid Khan) that proved to be a game-changer for this brilliant actor. The epic gangster drama helped Jaideep cement his popularity as an actor among his fans and the industry who couldn’t stop praising his decision of taking the road less travelled by opting for challenging roles.
Even though in Gangs of Wasseypur, where his acting prowess was spoken highly of by the media and the audiences alike, he never got his dues and never actually benefitted much after the release of the film as the other actors. In short, he was not much written about. In the world of media, it is very important to get seen and the problem with Ahlawat is he is barely seen.
Thereafter Jaideep was roped in to play mind-boggling characters in big-budget commercial movies like Raees, Commando, and even in Tamil cinema like Vishwaroopam. And this happened before he got a call from Meghna Gulzar to portray a RAW agent in the Alia Bhatt-Vicky Kaushal starrer Raazi.
We exclusively got in touch with Jaideep and he spoke at length about his endeavour to become mainstream. “I don’t know what is it. The thing is, I was too much into theatre, maybe I still am. This was right from my college days. In fact, I had also enrolled in the Film and Television Institute Of India for the acting course. Another problem is I never had a godfather in Bollywood and neither did anyone from my family belong to the film background,” quipped he.
Well, it is more than apparent that it was only Jaideep’s persistent efforts and determination that he has been able to carve a niche for himself in the industry. After these films, his oeuvre in the web platform began to flourish! Well, the actor made an appearance in the anthology film Lust Stories on the OTT platform as Sudhir in Dibakar Banerjee's segment.
And now, he is all set to appear in the Amazon Prime Video’s gritty crime drama ‘Paatal Lok’ which has been produced by Anushka Sharma. Paatal Lok is a nine-part series that follows the journey of Jaideep Ahlawat as Inspector Hathiram investigating an assassination attempt on a prime-time journalist and following four suspects.
The police-based crime thriller, written by Sudip Sharma, is all set to release on 15th May and is being produced under Clean Slate Films which is Anushka Sharma's banner.