#WhereAreThey Series: My debut was my mistake, looked so scrawny and ungroomed, says Shadaab Khan

When you are the son or daughter of Amjad Khan, the acter who played the iconic villain Gabbar in Sholay (1975), then trying to follow his footsteps might seem like a no-brainer. And, that’s exactly what his son Shadaab Khan had in mind when he made his Bollywood debut in 1997 with Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat. However, after a string of failures, he vanished from the industry for a while, only to make a comeback in 2019 with Romeo Akbar and Walter.

Looking back, he admits that his debut film was his “biggest mistake”, which had a ripple effect on his career.

“I shouldn’t have made my debut with Raja Ki … I was too young. Before my debut, I weighed about 145 kilos, and lost all that weight for my that film. That weight loss reflected on my face. I looked too pinched, scrawny, raw and completely ungroomed. My debut was a mistake from my side. It was nobody’s fault,” Shadaab tells us.

It was the death of his father, which led to his foray in the film industry, as he wanted to take forward his legacy. “It was only after my father passes away that I understood the true meaning of the song, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me by Elton John and George Michael, which he kept humming,” shares Khan, adding, “At that time, I didn’t want to be in college. I didn’t want to study. I just wanted to come into this business somehow. After losing my weight, I got featured in a magazine which caught the attention of (late actor) Mr Vinod Khanna and he wanted me to launch through Himalay Putra (1997), which didn’t work out. But after that, I got my debut film.”

His career is marked by films such as Hey Ram (2000), Refugee (2000), Bharat Bhagya Vidhata (2002) and Highway 203 (2007), all of which failed to garner good response.

“Somewhere along the line, I started thinking that this isn’t the right profession for me. I just felt probably I was too young when I came in, that’s why I stepped away from the business. For about 17 years, I had completely left acting. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be a part of this business. At that time, I again gained weight, and went back to about 135 kilos. I started writing novels,” the 48-year-old reveals.

It was in 2017 when Khan shed those extra kilos, and decided to give his acting career a second chance. And then Romeo Akbar Walter happened in 2019.

“Just before the shoot, I got third degree burns on my stomach and chest due to some incident, and doctors told me to rest. But I couldn’t afford to lose that film because I so badly wanted to come back. And I knew that I don’t have any helping hands in this industry. I took painkillers and shot the film, and once poured an entire bottle of sanitiser on my wounds. It burnt me for three days,” recalls the actor, who also made a brief appearance as Ajay Kedia in Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story.

The actor, who has multiple auditions and projects lined up, shuns the notion that star kids have it easy in the industry. Khan shares, “When your father or your parents are around in this business, then you have all the right people in your corner, grooming you. [But] when they aren’t there, you’re worse than somebody coming from the outside. My father passed away 30 years ago, so I’m Shadaab Khan on my own completely.”