He was known as Pradip Kamat in Three of Us, Hathi Ram in Paatal Lok, and Khalid Mir in Raazi. Discover the guy behind those looks by reading on

Actors are different from stars in this regard. According to Namrata Joshi, who moderated a conversation with Jaideep Ahlawat on Day 4 of the Cinevesture International Film Festival at Taj-Chandigarh, the actor is a star-actor in a class by himself. Though the actor would prefer that we think of him as just the result of a writer’s and director’s vision, we couldn’t agree more with her. He may be a famous actor, as Joshi pointed out, but what he says may or may not be accurate. The actor’s prominence was evident in the full ballroom at Taj-Chandgarh!

Ahlawat is one of several performers who have profited from the OTT boom, despite the fact that his career has spanned more than ten years. He attributes his achievement to one fundamental factor: excellent writing. “The reason my character looks nice on film is because of superb writing. Not only did I do a fantastic job on Paatal Lok, but so did the director, writer, cinematographer, and several other people. He says, “I was only the public face of that team effort.

When it comes to reading his scripts, he also adheres to tradition. “Instead of hearing someone read the script aloud as part of the narration, I would much rather have a physical copy. When someone narrates it, he imbues the character with his own emotions; but, when I read it, I form my own opinions. It’s real and unadulterated,” he claims.

In contrast, the passionate Ahlawat would rather get direction and feedback from his director and writer during a scene in order to really inhabit the role. Furthermore, he remarks, “It’s the digital medium that has given freedom to writers and directors to experiment and tell a tale in the long format and in many seasons,” in light of the positive reviews for Three of Us, another Netflix production, for its original story conveyed in a straightforward way. Which brings to mind the upcoming second season of Paatal Lok.

Filming Paatal Lok is described by Ahlawat as a “beautiful-painful feeling, which is satisfying as well.” “It’s an example of complex, nuanced writing,” he continues.

Speaking about his own journey from a hamlet close to Rohtak, Haryana, to Mumbai, Ahlawat adds that acting wasn’t his first choice for a profession. Like many of his contemporaries, he was a medical stream student at Jat College in Rohtak, and his goal was to join the armed forces.

However, he failed the SSB examinations, which shattered him entirely. He discovered his passion in theater after seeing the play Oedipus, which brought him to tears. The stage gave him freedom. “Writing plays became my way of surviving. I was happy while I was acting because I could eat, sleep, and go out and see people again,” he adds.

And it was because of this pleasure source that he decided to enrol in a postgraduate program at FTII Pune. “I never considered using my acting career to get money. In Mumbai, you may make a living as an ordinary actor, or even below mediocre. Thus, quality work was always the key.

When it comes to a superior product, he won’t compromise. Even if it means removing his own words from the screenplay, which may have enhanced or detracted from his reputation in his feature debut, Aakrosh. Ahlawat remembers asking author Aditya Dhar to omit the additional words from his eight-line scene—which he felt made no sense. I recite poems in Urdu and Hindi.

Brevity is the key of poetry. What a writer says in two hundred words, a poet says in two lines. I informed Aditya, “Ye teen char linein to bakwas lag rahi hain,” as a result. Additionally, he said that it was the first time a rookie actor had cut his own lines. Although he was taken aback by my idea, that episode has kept us friends to this day. Whether it’s Pradip Kamat in Three of Us, Shahid Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur, Hathi Ram in Paatal Lok, or Khalid Mir in Raazi, he loves every performance because, to him, “acting is breathing” and everything else is simply “a bonus.”