“You never fail till you stop trying.”

Using an Albert Einstein quote to describe Bobby Deol’s career resurgence was definitely not on my 2025 bingo card. But the world is anyway going more than a little crazy. Bobby, whose career slump a few years ago forced him to all but vanish from the Hindi film industry, is now back with a bang, becoming the go-to choice for many a role on screens both big and small.

A career 2.0 phase that kicked off with Aashram five years ago and spawned three seasons of a streaming sleeper success has travelled the gamut of interesting and memorable roles, to recently land on The Ba***ds of Bollywood, Aryan Khan’s directorial debut that has made the Deol scion popular with a generation that wasn’t even born when he made his acting debut exactly three decades ago.

With big-budget films (think Animal, Housefull 4 and 5), the aforementioned OTT successes and high-profile debuts in the Tamil and Telugu industries (Kanguva, Daaku Maharaj), Deol, 56, has scripted a comeback few could have dreamt of.

Even as you read this, Bobby is set to kick off another phase of his career, this time venturing into a space that he first flirted with in the indie-coded film Love Hostel three years ago. Bobby leads the cast in the Anurag Kashyap-directed off-centre film Bandar, which took him to the red carpet of the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September. On the other end of the spectrum, he steps into the as-commercial-as-it-gets Yash Raj Films Spy Universe with Alpha, which is the big Christmas Day release of the year, and co-stars Alia Bhatt. Everywhere you go, there is a little bit of Bobby. And everyone — filmmakers to fans — wants a piece of him.

“It has been a dream come true, it is a time that I couldn’t have seen coming even four-five years ago. I am grateful for this phase in my career and I will never take it for granted,” Bobby had told t2 right after his biggest comeback card, Animal, in which he (almost) stole the spotlight from leading man Ranbir Kapoor, not only became a box-office blockbuster, but also became a conversation-starter... good, bad, ugly. This, without uttering a word, given that his character was a dagger-happy mute psychopath. His eyes, of course, did all the talking.

HUMKO SIRF TUMSE PYAAR HAIN

It was those same eyes that enchanted an entire generation of female fans when Bobby made his debut with Barsaat in 1995. “Who’s that guy?” was the big question, with that solo poster of Bobby — sporting a leather jacket and Ray-Ban aviators — remaining a distinct part of the memories of most of us growing up in the ’90s. Today, Bobby has brought back that decade with renewed focus on his superhit number Duniya haseeno ka mela from Gupt. This was, of course, after it featured in that father-of-all-climax twist in The Ba***ds of Bollywood. With many — and not just limited to Gen Z — visiting and revisiting that song on YouTube, its views shot up by close to a whopping 10 million within the first 10 days!

What worked for Bobby when he started out is what is working for him now. The fact that he cannot be put in a bracket. While older brother Sunny has always flexed his muscles in the true tradition of a Punjab da puttar, Bobby came in with a boy-next-door charm, though his looks — brooding eyes, curly hair — was anything but boy-next-door. That immediately set Vijay Singh Deol — yes, that is the name he was born with — apart from his cookie-cutter contemporaries and ensured that Bobby got a mix of roles, at least in the first decade of his career.

Now, bouncing back after a long lull, Bobby is being cast because, once again, he has the ability to fit into different kinds of roles. “In project after project, Bobby has made sure to pick roles that make him stand apart. Even if a large number of those roles have been negative leads, he has managed to make most of them memorable. That is courtesy his ability to pick his parts with foresight and also play them with a certain level of discernment,” is the word from Bollywood trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

SMALL TO BIG

Bobby’s big comeback vehicle was Salman Khan’s Race 3 in 2018. Before that, it was a long period of sitting at home with no work, despite his background. Even the odd Dostana or Yamla Pagla Deewana didn’t bring dividends to his career. “Anyone who says that nepotism is the only thing that works in this industry should have looked at me then,” Bobby had said in an interview during the promotional run of Race 3.

It was a time of deep crisis for the actor who self-confessedly hit the bottle. “I gave up. I started pitying myself and took up drinking a lot. I was just sitting at home and I used to keep cursing and saying: ‘Why don’t people take me? I am good.’ I think I became very negative about everything. I used to sit at home, my wife would work. And suddenly I heard my son saying: ‘Mom, Papa sits at home and you go to work every day.’ And then something snapped in me and I said: ‘No, I can’t do this anymore,’” Bobby had opened up to host Karan Johar on an episode of the celebrity talk show Koffee with Karan.

Race 3, a film that was panned on all fronts and made far less money than one would expect from a Salman Khan film, and that too a big Eid release, may not have been the big comeback that Bobby was hoping for, but it did put him back in business. Playing a negative role, Bobby — who left the couch to hit the gym to get back in shape — may not have earned praise for his acting, but his shirtless pow-wow with a shirtless Salman in the middle of the Dubai dunes did put him right back on the thirst trap map. It even prompted Salman to humorously quip back then that Bobby Deol should henceforth be referred to as “Body Deol!”

Housefull 4 followed and though it was a huge hit that gave Bobby a solid franchise, whose fifth part, released in mid-2025, also featured him, it definitely didn’t boost his credentials as an actor.

“When I did Race 3, I knew people would at least know about my existence. Thanks to Salman, I got to be a part of the film. After that I did Housefull 4, and kids started noticing me because I was doing comedy. But as an actor, I wasn’t getting satisfied. I knew that to restart, I had to do something that would help me move forward,” Bobby had told t2 in an interview in 2021.

His bona fide comeback finally came about in 2020. In a year when the world was sitting largely unproductively at home, Bobby had two releases on streaming. One was Class of ’83 on Netflix, in which he played a brooding, bespectacled cop, a turn that earned him quite a bit of praise and kicked off Deol’s association with Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (that produced Class of ’83) and brought it full circle with The Ba***ds of Bollywood five years later.

But it was Prakash Jha’s multi-season winner Aashram that first dropped in August 2020, that gave Bobby’s 2.0 innings the upward thrust it badly needed. Playing a duplicitous godman who uses religion and blind faith to amass followers and exert influence as a cover-up for his corrupt lifestyle and criminal activities, Bobby was cast against type but sprung a huge surprise, effortlessly perfecting the fifty shades of grey of Baba Nirala.

Aashram, Deol had then told us, was the show that the actor in him was searching for. But there was a risk of going against type and playing a negative character, so he didn’t tell his family — including his father Dharmendra — and signed onto the show.

It was a career move that paid off. Aashram became a huge hit, surprising many, with its viewership being female skewed. Till date, the series has amassed hundreds of millions of views, with the third season alone breaking records by crossing 100 million views within 32 hours of its release. Previous seasons combined had a total viewership of around 160 million unique users. The fact that the show — which invited controversy from the outset — was available on the free-to-stream platform MX Player, obviously spiked its numbers, but almost all reviews of Aashram, across its various seasons, have cited Deol’s consistently high-quality performance as a reason for its huge success. “I haven’t watched a better performance of Bobby’s. As a godman he exudes stoic serenity and as a conman he’s as sleazy as one can be,” was how one review put it. “According to my brother (Sunny), Aashram is my Gadar because it is the most watched show ever,” Bobby has said in a recent interview podcast.

A FOR ANIMAL

Aashram proved to be a big shot in the arm for Bobby the actor. But it was with Animal that Bobby the star-actor was (re)born. The Sandeep Reddy Vanga biggie — that came out in December 2023 — may have had Ranbir Kapoor as its lead, but it was Bobby who became its surprise package. Right from that last shot in the trailer to that (once again) shirtless fight in the film’s final stages, Bobby was a revelation with his Abrar Haque ‘Jamal kudu-ing’ himself into our collective consciousness.

“It was a part that could have gone wrong in many ways, but I wanted to not only play it but bring a fresh dimension to it,” Bobby told t2. Raw and bloodied, Abrar didn’t utter a single word, with Vanga believing that it was the calm demeanour that Deol brought to an otherwise ruthless antagonist, who viewers expected to be verbose along with being violent, that worked for both Bobby and Abrar.

Vanga, while talking about what made him fashion Abrar in the manner he did, said in an interview: “While I was shaping Bobby Deol’s Abrar Haque for Animal, I thought to myself: ‘What if he is mute?’ The idea of a deaf and mute antagonist battling it out in the climax and not doing any stereotyped dialoguebaazi like was expected out of a Bollywood villain, was incredibly exciting to me. That’s when I decided to go for it,” Vanga explained.

The success of Animal — with Abrar becoming almost a cult figure of sorts — not only upped Bobby’s stakes, but has also contributed to his popularity with Gen Z, for many of who Animal was the first Bobby film they watched. Despite limited screen time, his menacing presence, fiery performance and raw intensity left an indelible mark.

THE STORY NOW

At a time when many of his contemporaries have moved on to father-figure roles and some (read: the Khans, Kumars, Devgns) still play ‘heroes’, Bobby has figured a place for himself — the sharp, suave anti-hero with a twist. But these, as mentioned before, aren’t your typical villains. “I don’t look at any character as negative; for me every character is positive and needs to be played with that kind of a mindset,” Bobby had told t2.

Deol has also successfully expanded his presence to film industries in the South, playing prominent roles in big-budget pan-India films, co-starring the likes of Suriya and Nandamuri Balakrishna. It is a phase in his career which has seen him go in full-on beast mode, but one in which he hasn’t lost his way. He has chosen wisely and without haste. There is also a marked increase in the versatility of his craft.

The fact that Deol isn’t shy of tapping into his own life experiences — particularly his failures — to play his parts now also works in his favour. In fact, this was one of the primary reasons that made Anurag Kashyap sign Bobby on for Bandar. “The story is of a has-been. Bobby understands what failure means. He has lived through that and come back stronger. That is why I knew he was perfect for this role,” Kashyap said in a recent interview. Kashyap recalls the actor confiding in him about his struggles when his career hit a rough patch. “Bobby said that if he passed by a house where shooting was happening, he would cry or get angry, wondering why nobody wanted him. At 40, someone suggested an acting workshop. Later, he played a dark character in Aashram and realised that freedom in not always being the hero,” Kashyap shared.

Bobby’s work ethic has also been exemplary, and something that many of his colleagues will vouch for. So is his mental make-up. “If you want something, you have to work for it. You can’t just sit on a chair manifesting it,” is what he had told t2 two years ago.

With his latest biggie The B***ds of Bollywood, Bobby has once again hit pay dirt. Playing a superstar in a series that is a hat-tip to all things Bollywood, Bobby’s portrayal of a suave movie actor and a protective father, despite being surrounded by much younger co-stars, has found many fans.

POSTER BOY OFPOP-CULTURE

Even before his purple patch, Bobby had worked himself into the conversations of the generation today in the way it knows best — by becoming a meme sensation. Bobby’s masala films from the ’90s — Soldier, Gupt, Bichhoo, Ajnabee and more — became fodder for many a meme, quickly earning him the moniker of ‘Lord Bobby’. Reason? The Internet explains it as a fan-driven nickname that gained traction, celebrating Bobby’s unique charm, style and comeback, particularly after his role in Animal. The fan handle@Bobbywood, dedicated to all things Bobby Deol in pop culture, is a thriving community of almost 36,000 followers on social media platform X. Its bio, ‘Lord Bobby Supremacy’, says it all.

Stand-up comic Anirban Dasgupta recently staged a hilarious piece on Bobby Deol, stating the many ways in which Bobby was a hit with ’90s kids... of course, tongue firmly in cheek. “I can’t believe that Bobby Deol is back in my life,” laughed Dasgupta, hitting it home for many of us.