Adil Hussain

sp; His acting career started with him acting in plays and performing in the college stand up comedies.   He is a good mimic and did mimicry of popular Bollywood actors and did performance of stand-up comedy in the Stand-up comedian group for about six years. 

Later he joined a mobile theatre and also did some local cinema before he decided to move to Delhi to study at the National School of Drama between 1990 and 1993.  He studied at the Drama Studio London thereafter on a Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship that he had received.

Adil Hussain who was first noticed as the late actress Sridevi’s husband in the film English Vinglish, where he plays the role of a husband who is dominating and looks down upon his wife.  Adil has not just been in Hindi films but he has also starred in English, Assamese, Burmese, Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, Norwegian, French films besides the Bollywood.

After his return to India in the year 1994, Adil joined the mobile theatre, ‘Hengul Theatre’ in Assam wherein he worked for three years before he moved to New Delhi.  

He started his career with stage performance though he had also continued to get trained under Khalid Tyabil.  After he completed his training he joined the training with Swapan Bose at Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry, followed by training with Dilip Shankar in Delhi.

The first accolade he received was for the much acclaimed ‘ A play in Black and White’ in 1999 for which he was awarded the Edinburgh Fringe First, and Goodbye Desdemona directed by Roysten Abel.

Adil Hussain was the artistic director and trainer at the Society for Artists and Performers in Hampi from the year 2004 to 2007.   He was the visiting faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Performing Arts at The Hague  and the Alma mater at the National School of Drama where he was again a faculty.

In 2004 he made his debut in a Bengali film alongside of Soha Ali Khan in the period drama film, Iti Srikanta in which he plays the lead role.  On the television he has appeared in the lead roles mostly in the detective series like Jasoos Vijay, produced by BBC World Service in 2002-2003.

Adil has appeared in some of the Assamese films.  He did a small role in Vishal Bhardwaj’s film ‘Kaminey’ and in the film for Real by Sona Jain.   It was his role in the year 2010 in the film Ishquiya by Abhishek Chauney that got him the much deserved accolades.

After a lot of stint in various films, regional films, international films the brilliant actor who is much acclaimed got his first major break in the Saif Ali Khan- Kareena Kapoor Khan starrer Agent Vinod that was released in 2012.  The same year he also did a film with the Italian director Italo Spinelli’s Gango, Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Life of Pi by Ang Lee.

His next critically acclaimed film is a light comedy family drama film alongside of Sridevi in English Vinglish in the year 2012.  Later he did a role in Lessons in Forgetting at the New Jersey Independent South Asian Cine Fest.   He thereafter acted in Aditya Bhattacharya’s Bombay Most Wanted and Partho Sen Gupta’s Sunrise.   

He had role as Inspector K N Singh in the Ranveer Singh Sonakshi film Lootera under the director of Vikramaditya Motwane.  Followed by Amit Vat’s comedy film Boyss Toh Boyss Hain, a story about four men who had similar problems and they come together to find their true love.

In 2014 Hussain was back with a change by his role in an Assamese Film Raag:The Rhythm of Love which was his first film in Assamese language in a lead role.  His other films were Assamese named Sringkhal and Rodor Sithi. He acted in the Hindi film Kaanchi:The Unbreakable in which he plays the role of CBI officer.  He is known for his character roles that he plays very convincingly.     In the Himesh Reshammiya starring film The Xpose he plays the role of Rajan while Himesh was in the lead but Adil’s role was also quite prominent and in Emraan Hashmi’s starrer Tigers he plays the role of Bilal which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014.  Adil Hussain’s first lead was in the Hindi film with the drama Zed Plus as Puncture wala in the role of Aslam.

Adil Hussain’s other films were mostly in the year 2015 wherein he appeared in maximum number of Hindi films such as Main Aur Charles, Jai Ho Democracyh, Angry India Goddesses.

He did his debut in the Tamil Cinema as well in the role of Selvam Vetri in the film Yatchan.  He also portrayed a role in Marathi film Sunrise as Joshi, In a Bengalis film Har Har Byomkesh .

The year that he worked not just in Hindi but also in Bengali, Tamil and Marathi films besides English.

In 2016 Adi was included in the drama film Parched which was premiered at the Special Presentation Section earlier in 2015.   His other projects were Force 2 featuring the handsome John Abraham and Sonakshi Sinha. In 2017 his releases included the Commando 2, The Black Money Trail, Love Sonia, Mantra, Mukti Bhawan, Dobaara: See your Evil, Kabuli wala and Naval Enna Jewel which were some of the films that he had enacted a role and had left an impact on the audience.

His last film was in 2018 before the pandemic hit the country in 2020,  was S. Shankar’s 2.0 as well as in the film Aiyaary and Bioscopewala.

Awards

With fame he rose to receive the National Film Awards under Special Jury at the 2017 National Film Awards for Hotel Salvation and for the film Maj Rat Keteki.

Other works

In 2013 having completed a film workshop at University Film club at Aligarh Muslim University, Adil Hussain was granted a lifetime membership in the University’s club. 

He was also honoured by Sandeep Marwah with club membership for life at the International Film and Television Club of Aisan Academy of Film & Television at Noida Film City.