Irrfan Khan

He also played a double role in the popular 90s Supernatural fantasy period drama, Chandrakanta, which was based on a novel written by Devki Nandan Khatri in 1888.

Irrfan Khan (born Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan; 7 January 196729 April 2020) was an Indian actor who worked in Indian cinema as well as British and American films.

Widely regarded as one of the finest actors in world cinema, Khan's career spanned over 30 years and earned him numerous accolades, including a National Film Award, an Asian Film Award, and six Filmfare Awards.

Khan was born on 7 January 1967 in Tonk, Rajasthan into a Muslim family of Pathan ancestry.

Khan's mother, Saeeda Begum Khan was from Tonk, and his father, Yaseen Ali Khan, was from the Khajuriya village in Rajasthan's Tonk district, and they ran a tyre business.

He spent his childhood in Tonk, and then Jaipur.

Irrfan was good at cricket and was selected to play in the CK Nayudu Trophy for emerging players in the under-23 category, a tournament seen as a stepping stone to first-class cricket in India.

However, he did not attend as he could not afford travel expenses.

He showed interest in acting under the influence of his maternal uncle who himself was a theatre artist in Jodhpur.

In Jaipur, Khan was introduced to noted theatre artists and did several stage performances in the city.

Khan completed his MA in Jaipur before joining the National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984 to study acting.

In his early days in Mumbai, he took up a job as an air conditioner repairman and visited the home of his acting inspiration, Rajesh Khanna, in 1984.

Later in an interview Irfan stated, "The kind of craze witnessed by Rajesh Khanna has not been duplicated by anyone. He was the biggest and the most real star Bollywood has produced. I'd say stardom is that feeling of being possessed by your idol; you are so overwhelmed with euphoria you lose touch with reality."

Soon after his graduation from NSD in 1987, Khan made his debut with Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! where he was offered a minor role.

However, his scenes were reduced in the final cut.

He played Lenin in a teleplay on Doordarshan titled Laal Ghaas Par Neele Ghode, based on a translation by Uday Prakash of a Russian play by Mikhail Shatrov.

He was then cast as a psycho killer, the main antagonist of the show, in the serial Darr.

He also played the famous revolutionary, Urdu poet and Marxist political activist of India, Makhdoom Mohiuddin, in Kahkashan, produced by Ali Sardar Jafri.

He acted in some of the episodes of Star Bestsellers (aired on Star-Plus).

He also appeared in two episodes of the SET India serial Bhanvar.

Khan made his film debut with a small role in Salaam Bombay! (1988), which was followed by years of struggle.

He featured opposite Roopa Ganguly in Basu Chatterjee's critically acclaimed drama film Kamla Ki Maut (1989).

He acted in a few Film and Television Institute of India student films such as Reconnaissance (1990), which was directed by Sandeep Chattopadhyay.

He acted in numerous television serials throughout the 1990s, including Chanakya, Bharat Ek Khoj, Sara Jahan Hamara, Banegi Apni Baat, Chandrakanta, Shrikant, AnooGoonj on Doordarshan, Star Bestsellers (Star Plus), Sparsh and The Great Maratha on DD National.

In the 1990s, he appeared in the critically acclaimed films Ek Doctor Ki Maut (1990), and Such a Long Journey (1998), as well as various other films, which went unnoticed.

In 1998, he played Valmiki in Sanjay Khan's serial Jai Hanuman.

After starring in the British film The Warrior (2001), he had his breakthrough with starring roles in the dramas Haasil (2003) and Maqbool (2004).

He also did an episode named 'From Reel to Real' in horror television show Ssshhhh...Koi Hai in 2001.

Asif Kapadia cast him as the lead in The Warrior, a historical film completed in 11 weeks on location in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

In 2001, The Warrior opened at international film festivals.

He went on to gain critical acclaim for his roles in The Namesake (2006) for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male, Life in a... Metro (2007), and Paan Singh Tomar (2011).

For portraying the title character in the last of these, he won the National Film Award for Best Actor.

His other notable roles were in Slumdog Millionaire (2008), New York (2009), Haider (2014), and Gunday (2014), and the television series In Treatment (2010).

In 2011, he was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour.

In 2021, he was posthumously awarded the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award.

Further success came for his starring roles in The Lunchbox (2013), Piku (2015), and Talvar (2015) and he had supporting roles in the Hollywood films The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Life of Pi (2012), Jurassic World (2015), and Inferno (2016).

His highest-grossing Hindi film release came with the comedy-drama Hindi Medium (2017), and his final film appearance was in its sequel Angrezi Medium (2020), both of which won him the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in 2018 and 2021.

As of 2017, his films had grossed US$3.643 billion (₹billion) at the worldwide box office.

Khan was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer in March 2018, and died from the disease on 29 April 2020.

Khan was described by Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian as "a distinguished and charismatic star in Hindi and English-language movies whose hardworking career was an enormously valuable bridge between South Asian and Hollywood cinema".