From Masaan in 2015 to Sardar Udham in 2021, Vicky Kaushal has been consistently pushing the bar with his seemingly effortless performances – gifting us one memorable character after the other.
An actor who never fails to impress, here’s a look at Kaushal’s movie journey in pictures that prove, no one slips into the skin of their characters like him:
While Masaan brought him nationwide fame, his first on-screen appearance was actually in the 2012 romantic comedy, Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana, where he played a young Omi.
Three years later, after a brief stint in Bombay Velvet, he debuted as a Hindi movie lead with Masaan and once again taught the entire nation the joy and pain of first love, while immortalizing the words, “ab toh hum friends ho gaye hai na?”
Kaushal’s Deepak is one of the finest debuts that Bollywood has ever seen, and to date, that shy smile is as hard to forget, as his unabashed wailing over losing his first love.
Fast at the heels of Masaan came Raman Raghav 2.0 and Zubaan. Not only were his roles, in both films, diametrically opposite from each other, they were also nothing like your usual ‘hero’ characters.
Though Zubaan missed striking a chord with the audience, Kaushal’s version of an edgy, addict cop straying between right and wrong in Raman Raghav 2.0 was a hit.
After a hiatus of 2 years, Kaushal returned as the ‘next-door’ lover boy in Netflix’s first Hindi original film, Love Per Square Foot.
Cheesy, adorable, and all kinds of wonderful, Kaushal made you fall in love with love, while also breaking his image as a ‘serious actor’.
But Love Per Square Foot was just the start. In 2018 alone, Kaushal delivered five completely varied roles and left both the audience and critics visibly impressed.
There was Raazi, where he married chivalry with old-age romance in a way that left our hearts beating faster and had us reimagining what an ideal man should be like.
I mean, it was impossible to not fall in love with him after Raazi.
And yet, at a speed that could give you whiplash, he reinvented himself in Lust Stories, playing the typical man who cares only about his own pleasure – inside the bedroom, and outside of it.
Soon after, he played the proverbial hero ka dost in Sanju. It’s a testament to his talent that even when he was given a cliched role, Kaushal made Kamli both, relatable and inspiring.
And right after Sanju came Manmarziyaan, his last film of the year, and one that showcased Kaushal in yet another avatar – of a part-time DJ and a full-time heartthrob.
After delivering one hit after the other and refusing to let a genre, acting style, or character type define him, Kaushal played the ultimate hero in the action drama, Uri: The Surgical Strike.
He left the nation shouting ‘how’s the josh?’, and won the National Film Award for his stellar performance.
He followed up URI by making his horror film debut with Bhoot – Part One: The Haunted Ship. Though the film failed at the Box Office, Kaushal was once again, in fine form.
And with the biopic Sardar Udham, Vicky Kaushal hit it out of the park, literally. In an industry that seemed saturated with both, patriotic films and biopics, Kaushal still made Sardar Udham appear novel, engaging, and impactful.
His depiction of Udham Singh might just land him his second National Award and even if it doesn’t, it has definitely landed him a permanent place in our hearts.
With 3 more films lined up, including Sam Bahadur, Kaushal is consistently breaking the mould. And looking at his short but intense journey in Bollywood so far, it is but guaranteed, that he is destined for far more success than what has already come his way.