Fawad Khan

Fawad Afzal Khan (born 29 November 1981) is a Pakistani actor, producer, screenwriter, songwriter and singer known for his work in films and Urdu television. Khan is a recipient of several accolades, including a Filmfare Award, two Lux Style Awards, and six Hum Awards.

Khan began his acting career on the television sitcom, Jutt and Bond. He formed an alternative rock band, Entity Paradigm, with the show's co-stars and began his music career as its lead singer. The band appeared on the finale of Pepsi Battle of the Bands in 2002 and Khan became known for its 2003 debut album, Irtiqa. After about 250 performances, he left the band to pursue a film career. Khan made his film debut with a supporting role in the social drama, Khuda Kay Liye (2007), one of Pakistan's highest-grossing films.

He had his first success in television period drama, Dastaan (2010), for which he received the Best Male Actor Award at the Pakistan Media Awards. Khan played a lead role in the Pakistani television serial Humsafar (2011), and appeared in Sultana Siddiqui's family drama Zindagi Gulzar Hai (2012). For both performances, he received the Lux Style Award for Best Actor. Khan made his Bollywood debut with the romantic comedy, Khoobsurat (2014), for which he received the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. He further received critical praise for starring in the family drama Kapoor & Sons (2016), which earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Following a brief hiatus, Khan made a comeback with his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in the miniseries Ms. Marvel (2022) as Hassan. His action-adventure film The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022) became Pakistan's highest-grossing film of all time.

Khan was born on 29 November 1981 in Karachi, Sindh. He belongs to a Pashtun family but can't speak Pashto. His father was born in Patiala (present-day Punjab, India) whereas his mother's family was native of Lucknow (present-day Uttar Pradesh, India), who moved to Pakistan after the 1947 partition of British India. When Khan was young, his father was in pharmaceutical sales, which required the family to live in Athens, Dubai, Riyadh and Manchester during the Gulf War. His family moved to Lahore, Punjab when he was 13. He has two sisters; his older sister, Aliya, is an architect and his younger sister, Sana, is a physician. He currently lives in Lahore.

Khan studied at an American school, where he said he faced racial issues and was bullied because of his shy, calm, non-combative nature. Khan passed his A-Levels at the Lahore Grammar School, Johar Town (LGS JT), and received a bachelor's degree in software engineering from the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) in Lahore. Because he could not find a job as a programmer, he soon began acting. In a Forbes India interview, Khan said that he had also failed to find a job in marketing. By then he could play guitar, bass and drums, and became Entity Paradigm's lead singer. Khan's first amateur performance was in the title role of a play, Spartacus.

Khan's first television role was a bumbling spy named Bond with his bandmate, Ahmad Ali Butt, in the 2001 sitcom Jutt and Bond. His debut film was Shoaib Mansoor's sociodrama Khuda Kay Liye, where he played a musician who is brainwashed by the local maulvi. Although the film received positive reviews, critical response to Khan's performance was mixed. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama called it "strictly OK", but The Economic Times' film critic Gaurav Malani found him "engaged" in the role of an extremist. Released in 2007, the film grossed Rs.  250 million and is one of Pakistan's highest-grossing films. Khan received the Lux Style Award for Best Actor – Film in 2008, and appeared in the TV series Dil Deke Jaenge. Later that year, in Anjum Shahzad's travel adventure TV series Satrangi, he played an engineer who goes on a road trip. In 2010, Khan played a conservative, middle-class boy in the telefilm Aaj Kuch Na Kaho. Although it received negative reviews, Dawn found Khan "superbly convincing" and called him the film's "only redeeming factor". That year, he starred with Sanam Baloch in Haissam Hussain's period TV series Dastaan. Based on Razia Butt's novel, Bano, its story (set in the 1940s) revolves around the separation of a young couple during the 1947 partition. A Dawn reviewer wrote that Khan and his costars gave "superlative performances to match Samira Fazal's wonderful script", and The Express Tribune praised the lead pair's onscreen chemistry. For his performance, Khan won the Best Drama Actor award at the Pakistan Media Awards.

Haissam Hussain's comedy Akbari Asghari, a modern adaptation of Mirat-ul-Uroos, was Khan's first television series in 2011; he played Asghar, an unambitious villager who wants to marry one of his cousins. In an interview with The Hindu's Anuj Kumar, Khan described his character as "completely oaf[ish]". In Kuch Pyar Ka Pagalpan, his third collaboration with Hussain, he starred with Sanam Baloch, Meekal Zulfiqar and Ayesha Khan as a computer engineer who wants to take over his uncle's business. Khan later starred with Mahira Khan in Sarmad Khoosat's TV serial drama, Humsafar, for which he won the Best Actor award at the 2012 Lux Style Awards. Humsafar is Pakistan's highest-rated television serial. The series and Khan's performance were praised. Ranika Rajani praised Humsafar in The Indian Express, calling it a "breath of fresh air" and preferring it to Indian soap operas. According to Rajani, the lead pair's chemistry was the biggest factor in the show's success. Zee News critic Ritka Handoo enjoyed the protagonists' performances, calling the Khans a "quite believable onscreen couple".