Paresh Rawal

Paresh Rawal (born 30 May 1955) is an Indian actor, comedian, film producer and politician known for his works notably in Hindi and few Telugu films. He was a member of parliament in the Lok Sabha of the Indian Parliament representing the Ahmedabad East constituency from 2014 to 2019. He is politically affiliated with the Bharatiya Janata Party. In 1994, he won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in the films "Woh Chokri" and "Sir". For the latter, he received his first Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role. This was followed by Ketan Mehta's "Sardar", which saw him playing the lead role of freedom fighter Vallabhbhai Patel, a role that got him national and international acclaim.
He has received wide recognition for his villainous roles in Telugu box office hits such as "Kshana Kshanam" (1991), "Money" (1993), "Money Money" (1995), "Govinda Govinda" (1994), "Rikshavodu" (1995), "Bavagaru Bagunnara" (1998), "Shankar Dada M.B.B.S." (2004), and "Teen Maar" (2011). His other notable works in Hindi cinema are "Naam" (1986), "Shiva" (1990), "Mohra" (1994), "Tamanna" (1996), "Aitraaz" (2004), "Table No. 21" (2013) and "Zilla Ghaziabad" (2013).
He then ventured into comedy, with hits such as "Andaz Apna Apna" (1994), "Chachi 420" (1997), "Hera Pheri" (2000), "Nayak" (2001), "Aankhen" (2002), "Awara Paagal Deewana" (2002), "Hungama" (2003), "Hulchul" (2004), "Deewane Huye Paagal" (2005), "Garam Masala" (2005), "Phir Hera Pheri" (2006), "" (2006), "Bhagam Bhag" (2006), Malamaal Weekly (2006), "Bhool Bhulaiyaa" (2007), "Welcome" (2007), "One Two Three" (2008), "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!" (2008), "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?" (2010), "Ready" (2010), "OMG – Oh My God!" (2012), "Welcome Back" (2015), "Dharam Sankat Mein" (2015), "Patel Ki Punjabi Shaadi" (2017), "Tiger Zinda Hai" (2017), "Sanju" (2018), "Made in China" (2019) and "Coolie No. 1" (2020).
Personal life.
Rawal was born and brought up in Bombay (now Mumbai). He is married to Swaroop Sampat, an actress and winner of the Miss India contest in 1979. Paresh and Swaroop have two sons, Aditya and Anirudh. He is an alumnus of Narsee Monjee College of Commerce & Economics, Vile Parle, Mumbai.
Rawal speaks Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and English.
Career.
Rawal made his debut with the 1985 film "Arjun" in a supporting role. It was the 1986 blockbuster "Naam" that established him as an actor with great talent. He then appeared in over 100 films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, mostly as the main villain, such as in "Roop ki Rani Choron Ka Raja", "Kabzaa", "King Uncle", "Ram Lakhan", "Daud", "Baazi" and so many more. In the 1990s, he also starred in the cult comedy "Andaz Apna Apna" in which he played a double role. Rawal was perceived as a character actor by both audiences and critics until the 2000 Bollywood cult classic "Hera Pheri", after which he starred in many Hindi mainstream films as a lead actor or main protagonist. Rawal played the dim-witted, boisterous and kind-hearted Marathi landlord Baburao Ganpatrao Apte in the film "Hera Pheri", who takes in Raju (Akshay Kumar) and Shyam (Sunil Shetty) as paying in his house. Rawal's acting was a key reason for the major nationwide success the film received. For his performance, he won the Filmfare Best Comedian Award. He reprised his role as Baburao in the sequel to the film "Phir Hera Pheri" (2006), which was also successful.
Another notable lead role came in 2002 when Rawal portrayed one of three blind bank robbers in the hit film "Aankhen", co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Aditya Pancholi, Akshay Kumar, Arjun Rampal and Sushmita Sen. Rawal, for the remainder of the 2000s, was seen in mainly comedy oriented multi-starrers, mostly amongst the lead protagonists such as in "Awara Paagal Deewana" (2002), "Hulchul" (2004), "Garam Masala" (2005), "Hungama", "Deewane Huye Paagal" (2005), "Malamaal Weekly" (2006), "" (2006), "Chup Chup Ke" (2006), "Bhagam Bhag" (2007), "Shankar Dada MBBS" (Telugu), "Bhool Bhulaiyaa", "Welcome", "Mere Baap Pehle Aap" (2008) and "De Dana Dan" (2009). In 2010, Rawal acted in the movie "Aakrosh", based on honour killing.
In 2012, Rawal played the lead role in the superhit "OMG – Oh My God!". Good friend Akshay Kumar was seen supporting him, and both won rave reviews for their roles.
He has also had a very successful acting career in Gujarati plays, the latest hit being "Dear Father".
For television he has produced several Hindi soaps including Zee TV's "Teen Bahuraaniyaan", Sahara One's "Main Aisi Kyunn Hoon" and Colors' "Laagi Tujhse Lagan".
His latest notable release is Rajkumar Hirani's "Sanju" with Ranbir Kapoor. He plays actor Sunil Dutt's role in the movie.
He is also reprising his role as Baburao Ganpatrao Apte in "Hera Pheri 3" which was going to be released in 2019, but is 'on hold' as of May 2020.
On 10 September 2020 he was appointed as the chief of the National School of Drama, by the President of India
In 2021 Rawal is appearing in sports drama "Toofan", a film directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, alongside Farhan Akhtar, who is playing a national level boxer. The film will premiere on 21 May 2021 on Amazon Prime Video.
As of March 2021, he is set to appear in "Hungama 2", a comedy film by Priyadarshan having ensemble cast headlined by him, Shilpa Shetty, Meezaan Jaffrey and Pranitha Subhash. It is a spiritual successor of 2003 comedy "Hungama". His other upcoming films are "Aankh Micholi", "Hera Pheri 3" and "The Storyteller" in which he will portray Satyajit Ray's famous character Tarini Khuro.
Politics.
He won as the Bharatiya Janata Party's Member of Parliament (MP) from Ahmedabad East constituency in the 2014 Indian general election. In 2014, he was awarded Padma Shri.
 
Controversy.
On 21 May 2017, Rawal tweeted addressing an incident where Indian Army tied an Kashmiri stone pelter as a human shield on an army jeep:"Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep, tie Arundhati Roy" making a reference to the allegations that Indian soldiers tied a stone-pelter in Kashmir to their jeep and used him as a human shield, and it was presumed that he wanted Roy to be used as a human shield. Rawal's tweet provoked a controversy,He was criticised by fellow actor Swara Bhaskar,a vocal left wing supporter. Rawal was also criticised by Congress leader Shobha Ojha while filmmaker Ashoke Pandit supported his tweet.
He addressed the tweet controversy in July 2017 by saying with regard to Roy that he was exercising his freedom of expression – "If she is right, then even I am right. If she regrets making the comments, then I also regret. Agreed that this is fake news, but what about the comments that she made on 2002 Godhra riots? If you have freedom of expression then even I have it"
Awards and honours.
Bollywood Movie Award
2006: Sardar Patel International Award for the Best acting of Sardar in Sardar Patel Film.