ALI FAZAL ’S SLOW AND STEADY RISE, Remember the college student searching for some sunlight with his guitar in the movie 3 Idiots? One could have easily brushed him aside due to his brief appearance onscreen but what made us remember him was his earnest performance even in the little screen space. However, from his short character of 3 Idiots to Bhaukaal of Mirzapur, Fazal has truly emerged as a strong and able actor.
As he sets off as a murder suspect in the upcoming Death On the Nile, let’s look at the journey that set him afloat on global cinema. Fukrey, the 2013 sleeper hit movie brought him to the attention of the audience as well as the filmmakers and showed us a glimpse of their charm. Fazal played a brooding but heart-broken musician, Zafar and won hearts.
Slowly Fazal has been seen in a number of novel stories though all of them weren’t a hit on the box office. This landed him in Bang Baaja Baaraat on Y-films. This was a hilarious drama that mocked the big, fat and showy Indian weddings. Bang Baaja Baaraat was a rare treat when the world of web series was still developing and Ali was brilliant in his performance without a doubt.
Soon after, he had his first Hollywood stint with a cameo role in the Furious 7. This was followed by another sleeper hit called Happy Bhag Jayegi where he displayed his untapped comic side to an audience that was still warming up for web presentations. Right after this movie, Fazal went on with his second Hollywood film Victoria & Abdul where he starred opposite Judi Dench- an actor, any upcoming star would die to perform with.
However, the best of Ali Fazal was yet to come. With his role of Guddu Bhaiya in Mirzapur, he was actually shot to fame and it gave him the ultimate social media validation- a meme. Keeping the jokes apart, Fazal had a well-deserved rise to popularity with Mirzapur that was a rare show where every actor performed exceptionally well to do justice to their characters. Yet, out of all the characters, the brawny and trigger-happy character of Guddu Bhaiya played by Ali Fazal went on to become one of the most loved characters from all of Hindi web series.
After this success, Fazal didn’t restrict himself to the role that was tried and tested and went on the experimental journey with movies like House Arrest, Prassthanam, Milan Talkies and his latest upcoming show, Death on the Nile. Ali Fazal is definitely not the only Bollywood actor who has appeared in Hollywood shows and we hope he is not the last one either because art and talents should not be restricted to geographical or physical boundaries.
It is definitely exciting to see Fazal bag interesting roles in international projects while he keeps the domestic audience entertained with his skill and art. He serves us with something new in every performance that he undertakes. It seems, he finally reached the sunshine!
