Ishaan Khatter

Ishaan Khatter (born 1 November 1995) is an Indian actor. The son of actors Rajesh Khattar and Neelima Azeem, he made his first screen appearance as a child in the 2005 film Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi!, which starred his half-brother Shahid Kapoor.^[1][2]

Ishaan Khatter
Khatter in 2023
Born	(1995-11-01) 1 November 1995 (age 29) Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2017–present
Parent(s)	Rajesh Khattar Neelima Azeem
Relatives	Kapoor family

Khatter had his first leading role in Majid Majidi's drama Beyond the Clouds (2017), in which his performance as a drug dealer won him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. His first commercial success came with the romantic drama Dhadak (2018), and he has since starred in the British miniseries A Suitable Boy (2020) and the American miniseries The Perfect Couple (2024).

Early life and background

Khatter is the son of actors Neelima Azeem and Rajesh Khattar. Through his mother he belongs to the family of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, a writer and film director.^[3] His half-brother, Shahid Kapoor, is Azeem's son from her first marriage to actor Pankaj Kapur.^[4][5] Khatter describes himself as someone who is proud of his middle class values.^[6] He explains that he grew up in a household rich in culture, cinema, and the performing arts, and that he worked towards developing himself as an artiste.^[6] Khatter was educated at Jamnabai Narsee School and Billabong High International School, Juhu in Mumbai.^[7] He also studied dance at Shiamak Davar's academy.^[8]

After making his first screen appearance as a child in the 2005 film Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi!, starring Kapoor,^[1] Khatter worked as an assistant director to Abhishek Chaubey on his film Udta Punjab (2016) and Danish Renzu on the independent film Half Widow (2017).^[9]

Career

Khatter in 2018

Khatter's first acting role as an adult came with Beyond the Clouds (2017), directed by Majid Majidi, in which he played Amir, a drug dealer. It premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2018.^[10] Reviewing the film for The Hollywood Reporter, Deborah Young wrote that Khatter's "noteworthy screen charisma promises well for his future career".^[11] He won the Best Actor award at the 5th International Bosphorous Film Festival and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut.^[12][13]

Khatter next played the lead role in Shashank Khaitan's romantic drama Dhadak (2018), a remake of the Marathi film Sairat (2016), co-starring newcomer Janhvi Kapoor.^[14][15] It tells the story of two young lovers in rural Rajasthan who face political opposition to their relationship due to caste discrimination. Uday Bhatia of Mint criticized Dhadak for lacking the depth of the original film, but found "a soulfulness to [Khatter] that's at odds with Hindi cinema's current penchant for bratty, hyperactive onscreen male personas".^[16] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express too disliked the film, but labelled Khatter a "natural" performer and took note of his "mobile, expressive face".^[17] With worldwide earnings of over ₹1.1 billion (US$13 million), Dhadak emerged as a commercial success.^[18][19]

In 2020, Khatter starred in the British miniseries A Suitable Boy, Mira Nair's adaptation of Vikram Seth's novel of the same name, in which he was paired opposite Tabu.^[20] It aired in six parts on BBC One.^[21] He was drawn to the project due to its depiction of an older woman-young man romance, which he hoped would challenge social stigma of such relationships.^[22] Hugo Rifkind of The Times found Khatter to be "suitably charismatic and dangerous" in his part.^[23] That same year, he starred alongside Ananya Panday in the action film Khaali Peeli, which due to COVID-19 pandemic was released digitally on Zee Plex.^[24]

In 2022, Khatter featured alongside Katrina Kaif and Siddhant Chaturvedi in the comedy horror film Phone Bhoot.^[25][26] Reviewers were generally unimpressed with the picture,^[27] but Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV thought that the "charm and spunk" that Khatter brought to his comic role enabled him to "[walk] away with the film".^[28] The following year, he started in a promotional short film for Apple Inc., titled Fursat, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj on an iPhone 14 Pro.^[29] In the war drama Pippa, set during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Khatter played the real-life character of army commander Balram Singh Mehta.^[30] In preparation, he spent time with Mehta and attended military boot camp.^[31][32] Initially scheduled for a theatrical release, it was eventually released on Amazon Prime Video after several delays.^[31] Rediff.com's critic Sukanya Verma opined, "There's a hearty quality to Ishaan, but in Pippa he's trying too hard."^[33]

In 2024, Khatter featured alongside an ensemble cast in The Perfect Couple, an American Netflix limited series based on Elin Hilderbrand's mystery novel of the same name.^[34] Screen Rant's Mae Abdulbaki found his character's subplot to be of minimal significance to the main storyline.^[35] In the upcoming Indian Netflix series, The Royals, he will star opposite Bhumi Pednekar.^[36]

Media

Khatter was ranked by The Times of India in their "Most Desirable Men" listings at No. 27 in 2018,^[37] at No. 32 in 2019,^[38] at No. 25 in 2020.^[39]

Filmography

Films

†	Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2005	Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi!	Ishaan	Child artist	[40]
2016	Udta Punjab	Unnamed	Also assistant director	[41]
2017	Half Widow	—	Assistant director	[42]
	Beyond the Clouds	Amir Ahmed		[43]
2018	Dhadak	Madhukar Bagla		[44]
2020	Khaali Peeli	Banda Blackie		[45]
2021	Don't Look Up	Raghav Manavalan	American film; cameo	[46]
2022	Phone Bhoot	Galileo "Gullu" Parthasarthy		[47]
2023	Fursat	Nishu	Short film	[29]
	Pippa	Captain Balram Singh Mehta		[48]

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2020	A Suitable Boy	Maan Kapoor	Miniseries	[49]
2024	The Perfect Couple	Shooter Dival	Miniseries	[34]
2025	The Royals †	Aviraaj Singh	Filming	[50][51]

Music videos

Year	Title	Singer(s)	Ref.
2025	"Pyaar Aata Hai"	Shreya Ghoshal, Rito Riba	[52]

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Film	Result	Ref.
2017	International Bosphorous Film Festival	Best Actor	Beyond the Clouds	Won	[13]
2018	Screen Awards	Best Male Debut	Dhadak / Beyond the Clouds	Won	[53]
2019	Zee Cine Awards	Best Male Debut		Won	[54]
	Filmfare Awards	Best Male Debut	Beyond the Clouds	Won	[55]
	International Indian Film Academy Awards	Star Debut of the Year – Male	Dhadak	Won	[56]
2023	Bollywood Hungama Style Icons	Most Stylish Mould Breaking Star (Male)	—	Nominated	[57]
		Most Stylish Emerging Icon	—	Nominated
2024	Filmfare OTT Awards	Best Actor in a Web Original Film (Male)	Pippa	Nominated	[58]