Pakistani actor Fawad Khan is not only popular in his home country but also enjoys a massive fan following in India. He has played lead roles in a few notable Bollywood films, including Khoobsurat and Kapoor & Sons.
The 42-year-old star recently appeared for an interview on a YouTube channel where he spoke about his stint in Bollywood and industry politics.
The host asked Khan, “You’ve made a lot of friends in India, but it came to the point where you were being compared to the big names. Did it p**s off a lot of the big dogs? Ali Zafar, Mahira Khan and you were being offered lead roles in one of the biggest industries in the world. Do you think it happened too soon for you in order to become a threat?”
Responding to the host’s question, the actor said, “That’s such a heavy question. I got a lot of love from India. But look, every industry has its politics. In Pakistan as well. But it’s easier to combat the politics in your industry because it is your own. I’m not saying it is unheard of, I’m sure it happens everywhere.”
He continued, “But there was one thing if I talk about threat or no threat – I had PRs, and they used to get angry at this… I was like, ‘I need you to take out my name, not put it in there’. I would ask my PR, ‘You are here just to remove me from places, not put me’. My manager, who is my good friend now, would say, ‘No, you don’t know how the world works’. I said, ‘I don’t want to do Instagram, Facebook, I don’t want to do all these things.’ But she would say ‘That is the norm!’”
Fawad Khan and several other Pakistani actors were banned from working in India in the wake of the Uri attacks in 2016. The Bombay High Court lifted a ban on Pakistani artistes in India last year. Recently, British-Pakistani actor Alyy Khan was seen in an important role on the Disney+Hotstar series The Trial and then The Archies.
