Zakir Hussain is a veteran and prominent film and television actor from India. He was famous for doing comedic and negative roles and his best performance was from the dramatic film, Sarkar in 2005 where he played the role of Rasheed; a don from Dubai. Followed by this is the 2007 neo-noir film,
Johnny Gaddaar
by
Sriram Raghavan
. He is Shardul, one of the gang that operates a gambling club along with Vikram (played by
Neil Nitin Mukesh
), Prakash (played by
Vinay Pathak
), Swshadri (played by Dharmendra) and Shiva (played by
Dayanand Shetty
). He was notably remembered by every people on the street and they started to call him Shardul. This is the film that pays him well and gained him so much fame.
Zakir was born and raised up in the village of Janikhurd Tehsil in the district of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. He got fascinated with theaters and cinema when he was studying in New Delhi. And then, he initiated his career in a small time theater and later he joined a group in Mandi House called, Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts. Afterwards, he also joined the respected National School of Drama and had a graduation in year 1993.
After performing in theaters for few years, he moved to Mumbai to work as a television and film actor. He first speared in serials like Kitty Party, Firdaus and Gaatha from which he gained a lot of recognition. His first film was
Ek Hasina Thi
in 2004 under the production of
Ram Gopal Varma
, from which he played the character of Sanjiv Nanda. From this film, Zakir appeared in two scenes only, but the director was impressed by is acting so he offered him the role of Rasheed in the film, Sarkar. His character as a villain was acclaimed and he got the New Menace Award in Stardust Film Awards in 2006. Since then, he started to appear in most of Varma’s productions.
Aside from acting, he is also a brilliant percussionist and he sings well. Some of the films that he did include Dishyen, Kala Juma, D, D, James, Shiva, The Killer, Deadline: Sirf 24 Ghante, Risk, Fool n Final, Darling, Contract, Radio and a lot more. Some of his recent films are Hoiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty where he played the role of Alvin D’Souza, the Bollywood action film
Singham Returns
and the upcoming thriller film, Chaarfutiya Chhokare.
He was also roped in to do the character of Anand Upadhyay (Yudh’s companion) in the psychological mini-serial, Yudh in 2014.