Ali Fazal Returns as Guddu Pandit in Mirzapur Movie
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- Ali Fazal returns as Guddu Pandit in 'Mirzapur: The Movie,' a theatrical continuation of the Prime Video crime drama; he compares the franchise's ambitions to 'Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man' and calls the project India's first such theatrical experiment.
- Fazal also leads Prime Video's 'Raakh,' an investigative thriller drawn from one of India's most notorious real-life cases, playing Sub-Inspector Jayprakash — a merit-raised working-class policeman consumed by a case that outgrows him.
- Fazal rewound his performance for the film, deliberately stripping away seasons of accumulated hardening to find Guddu's earlier self, calling the character underneath the bodybuilder physique one of India's 'unloved men.'
- Pushing Buttons Studios, the production banner Fazal runs with his wife Richa Chadha, debuted with 'Girls Will Be Girls,' which won the Sundance Film Festival audience award and a jury prize for its lead actor.
- Fazal's upcoming slate includes a cameo in Aamir Khan's partition drama 'Batwara' with Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta, a segment in Netflix's 'Lust Stories' directed by Shakun Batra, and an English-language corporate drama to shoot in London next year.
- Fazal argues Indian production contracts need to modernize for international collaboration and that the industry remains too fragmented across languages for independent filmmakers to organize on shared ground.
Why it matters: Fazal is using his Guddu Pandit recognition to bankroll independent Indian cinema through Pushing Buttons Studios, with 'Girls Will Be Girls' already proving out the model at Sundance. With two Prime Video vehicles and an English-language London shoot ahead, he is positioning himself as both a frontline streaming-era star and a producer trying to fix gaps the industry hasn't addressed — from theatrical distribution for documentaries to festival submission know-how.
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