Vicky Kaushal

Early life and career

Kaushal's father, Shyam Kaushal, is a Bollywood action director and stunt coordinator who has worked in films like Slumdog Millionaire, 3 Idiots and Bajrangi Bhaijaan among others. His brother Sunny Kaushal, is also associated with the film industry and has been associated as assistant director in movies like Gunday and My Friend Pinto.

Kaushal graduated as an electronics and telecommunications engineer in 2009 from Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology ,Mumbai. He had job offers but as he aspired to become an actor, he got involved with theatre. He joined an acting workshop under Kishore Namit Kapoor. He went on to do minor roles in films like Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana and Bombay Velvet besides a short film, Geek Out. He kept doing theatre, in the meanwhile, with the groups of Manav Kaul and Naseeruddin Shah among others.

In 2010, he assisted Anurag Kashyap on the two-part film Gangs of Wasseypur. Neeraj Ghaywan was also one of the assistant directors in the film. When Neeraj began to work on his film Masaan, Kaushal too was called for an audition. According to Neeraj, initially, he had apprehensions about Kaushal doing the role of a small town Banaras boy because he came from a typical Punjabi background. But he got convinced about his ability after watching the audition.

Rating his performance as outstanding, Deepanjana Paul in her review of the film for First Post wrote that "There isn't a moment when Kaushal appears to be acting". "Kaushal is sincere, understated and has eyes brimming with yearning," wrote Raja Sen reviewing the film in Rediff.com. Shubha Shetty-Saha wrote in Midday, "he surprises with his nuanced and absolutely believable performance."

Kaushal's second film, Zubaan, was released in March 2016. The film is a coming-of-age story of a young boy (Vicky Kaushal) who suffers from stuttering. His next release was Anurag Kashyap's psychological thriller Raman Raghav 2.0, in which he played a drug-addict cop.

Kaushal's upcoming film is Manmarziyan also starring Ayushman Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar. However, it has suffered from delay as the producer Anand L Rai has replaced the director due to differences in creative space. The films will begin re-shooting in August 2016.

Vicky Kaushal will be seen playing a Pakistani army man in Meghna Gulzar's Raazi.