Vijay Singh Deol (born 27 January 1969), known by his stage name Bobby Deol, is an Indian actor who works in Bollywood. A member of the Deol family, he is the younger son of actor Dharmendra. He has won a Filmfare Award in 1996.

After appearing as a child artist in Dharam Veer (1977), Deol had his first lead role in the blockbuster romance Barsaat (1995) that won him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. He established himself as a lead with the top-grossing films Gupt (1997), Soldier (1998), Badal (2000), Bichhoo (2000), Ajnabee (2001), and Humraaz (2002). It was followed by a brief career downturn, during which his only rarely successful films include multi starrers like Apne (2007), Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011), Race 3 (2018) and Housefull 4 (2019). He reinforced his critical success with acclaimed performances in digital ventures Class of '83 (2020), Love Hostel (2022) and Aashram (2020–present).

Early life and family

Deol was born on 27 January 1969 into a Punjabi Jat family in Bombay. He is the second son of Bollywood star Dharmendra and Parkash Kaur. He is the younger brother of Sunny Deol and also has two sisters Vijayta and Ajeeta who live in California. His step-mother is Hema Malini, through whom he has two paternal half-sisters, actress Esha Deol and Ahana Deol. His cousin Abhay Deol is also an actor.

Acting career

1995–2003

Deol first briefly appeared as a child actor at the age of ten in Dharam Veer (1977). Deol then made his adult debut in Bollywood alongside Twinkle Khanna in Barsaat (1995) directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. Deol plays the character of Badal, a naive but intelligent young man who moves from a small village to the big city and gets caught up with corrupt police and criminal gangs amidst falling in love. Partly shot in Scotland, Deol broke his leg in an equestrian accident while filming and had to be flown to London to recuperate and had to call off several publicity shoots which documented his debut. The film was a moderate success at the box office and garnered him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut.

In 1997, Deol starred in Gupt: The Hidden Truth, a suspense thriller directed by Rajiv Rai, which is widely considered his breakthrough role. Cast alongside Manisha Koirala, Kajol, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Raj Babbar, Deol played the role of Sahil, a young man accused of murdering his stepfather over an engagement proposal and wrongly imprisoned. He escapes and tracks down the real killer. Gupt: The Hidden Truth was highly acclaimed for its storyline and soundtrack and was a commercial success. In the same year, Deol appeared in Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya, alongside Aishwarya Rai in her debut Bollywood role. The film failed to do well at the box office.

In 1998, Deol starred opposite Neha in the Vidhu Vinod Chopra film, Kareeb. Deol played the character of Birju, an irresponsible young man from an upper-middle-class family in Himachal Pradesh with a love of petty thievery and deceit. Later in 1998, he appeared in Abbas Mustan's military thriller Soldier, alongside Raakhee and Preity Zinta. Deol played the mysterious character of Vicky, later revealed as Raju, son of Vijay Malhotra who was convicted of arms smuggling. Soldier was a big hit and was a huge commercial success.

In 1999, Deol starred in Dillagi, directed by and co-starring his brother Sunny Deol. The film is noted for being the first time Sunny Deol directed a film and also the first time he acted alongside Bobby Deol. This pairing was repeated in 23rd March 1931: Shaheed (2002), Apne (2007) and Yamla Pagla Deewana (2011) among others. Dillagi features the two as the brothers Ranvir and Rajvir, fighting for the affection of Shalini (Urmila Matondkar).

2004–2013

In 2003, Deol took a hiatus from acting and returned to the screen in 2004 in Kismat opposite Priyanka Chopra. In Bardaasht, a drama based on the screenplay written by Vikram Bhatt, Deol starred alongside Lara Dutta and Rahul Dev as Aditya Shrivastav, a deserted army officer. The film deals with themes of police brutality and corruption and justice. Deol then played another army officer, a Lieutenant Commander in Anil Sharma's Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo as Kunaljit Singh/Vikramjeet Singh. The film, which featured an ensemble cast including Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar, was arguably Deol's most high-profile film to date, but despite the hype and high box office expectations, it proved a commercial disaster. However, he received praise for his role which had him wear a pugh/turban, which gave him more of an audience from the Punjabi crowd, and inspired comments saying he looks better in a turban.

In 2005, Deol starred in Vikram Bhatt's thriller Jurm as the wealthy businessman Avinash Malhotra who suspects his wife Sanjana (Lara Dutta) of having an affair with Rohit (Milind Soman). Deol's performance was praised by a number of critics, with Vivek Fernandes of Rediff.com remarking, “Bobby Deol, Bhatt's schoolmate, does his alma mater proud with his controlled performance. There's a sense of maturity about his candour, which is good news.” Deol then starred alongside Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty and Ajay Devgan in Mani Shankar's war movie Tango Charlie as an Indian trooper named Tarun Chauhan of the 101st BSF Battalion, operating in the northeastern Indian province fighting Bodo militants in Upper Assam. He followed this role by featuring in Suneel Darshan's romance film Barsaat as the ambitious young Indian Arav, who, in living in the United States, becomes involved in a love triangle with Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu. The film was a critical and commercial failure, with Ziya us Salaam of The Hindu concluding, “A moth-eaten love triangle with all the stereotypes Bollywood survives on – a devoted wife with her karva chauth ki thali, the other woman with her mini-skirts, a joint family, songs, festivities..... No shower of rejuvenation, this Barsaat is just drenched in mediocrity.” She was equally unimpressed with Deol's performance, remarking, “The girls are ready with their curls and curves, the guy just appears lost, making you wonder if Bobby has grown even an inch as an actor since he made his debut in Rajkumar Santoshi's film of the same name.” His final role of 2005 was as Karan in Dosti: Friends Forever, opposite Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Kareena Kapoor, and Juhi Chawla. He once again plays a wealthy businessman but is down on his luck with his finances and romancing women. The film, although performing below average in India was a major success in the United Kingdom, where it became the highest grosser of Bollywood in 2005, grossing around £888,000.

In 2006, Deol starred in the romantic musical film Humko Tumse Pyaar Hai. Deol played Raj, a character who falls in love with Durga (Ameesha Patel), a beautiful blind woman with a talent for shaping pottery, but faces competition from Rohit (Arjun Rampal). The pairing of Deol and Patel was hugely hyped and had been labelled as the "Bollywood equivalent of Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger". Although the film received mixed reviews, a number of critics praised Deol's performance as Raj, with Taran Adarsh commenting, “Bobby Deol is only getting better as an actor. He manages to register an impact in a film that belongs to Patel and Rampal primarily.” Later that year, he made a brief special appearance in Alag in the song Sabse Alag.

2017–present

Bobby Deol has made his comeback in 2017 with Shreyas Talpade's directorial venture Poster Boys alongside his brother Sunny Deol. In 2018, Deol played the role of Yash in the action thriller Race 3 alongside Salman Khan and Jacqueline Fernandez. He also starred as Kalaa in the comedy film Yamla Pagla Deewana: Phir Se co-starring his Dharmendra, Sunny Deol and Kriti Kharbanda. In 2019, he starred as Dharamputra / Max in the comedy film Housefull 4 alongside Kriti Kharbanda, the film released on 25 October 2019 and was directed by Farhad Samji. His latest release Class of '83 was on Netflix, where he played the character of a police officer. The film is based on the book The Class of '83 and tells the story of a hero policeman shunted to a punishment posting as the dean of the police academy. Class of '83 is Netflix's third collaboration with Red Chillies Entertainment, following the original series Bard of Blood and Betaal. The film premiered on 21 August 2020 on Netflix. In 2020 his web series Aashram premiered on MX Player original series where he played the character of a Baba Nirala. The actor has made a stellar comeback in his second innings and cast in several movies since then. Three generations of Deols in ‘Apne 2’: Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, and Karan Deol all set for the sequel.