Fawad Afzal Khan (Urdu: فواد افضل خان‎; born 29 November 1981) is a Pakistani film and television actor, producer, rock singer and an occasional model. Khan has established himself as a critically and commercially acclaimed actor in Pakistani television and film industry. He has appeared in Pakistan's highest rated television shows in genres of romance, comedy and social drama.^[3]

Khan rose to prominence in the Pakistani movie Khuda Kay Liye released in 2007, and later as a lead actor in commercially acclaimed TV shows Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai, for which he won Best Actor Awards at the Lux Style Awards 2012 & 2014. In 2014, Khan made his Bollywood debut in a romantic comedy film Khoobsurat.^[4] for which he received Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. Khan was a leading member of nu metal band Entity Paradigm until 2012.

Khan was born on 29 November 1981 in Karachi. He spent earlier years of his life abroad. Khan in an interview shared that "the nature of my father's job required his family to travel, so we moved to Athens, Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Riyadh and then went to Manchester during the Gulf War, moving back to Lahore closer to my father's retirement". He was 13 years old at that time and since then he has been living in Lahore.He could play the guitar, bass and drums all when he was only 20. He put his voice to use as the lead singer of the band "Entity Paradigm".^[1] Khan obtained his A-levels from LGS Lahore and went on to complete his Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science from the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Lahore.^[5] He first acting performance was amateur acting in a theater play called Spartacus during A-level in 1999.^[2][6]

Khan married his teenage sweetheart Sadaf Aftab on 12 November 2005 after a courtship of 8 years from whom, he has a son named Ayan.^[7] He terms himself a hopeless romantic in real life and proclaims he can take a bullet for woman he loves.^[8] Khan, in collaboration with his wife, established a clothing brand called SILK by Fawad Khan.^[9] It is a luxury Ready-to-wear brand, debut collection was launched in August 2012 at Lahore by Khan.^[9][10][11]

Khan, developed type 1 diabetes at the age of 17 after he met an accident that damaged his pancreas. Khan does not shy away from talking about it and encourages adapting a healthy lifestyle. He recollects the memory of the accident as "While it did it not hit me while I was at the hospital, when we were driving back from Islamabad to Lahore, it was raining in the car and my two sisters were sleeping next to me at the back and it struck me for the first time that there were things from there on that I would not be able to do in my life and sort of felt disabled. I did not let anyone know how I was feeling in the car, but I broke down inside".^[12]

Interestingly, he admits to have a very bad sweet tooth and credits his wife for successfully managing his diabetes. He wears a small device on his arm all the time which monitors his sugar levels.^[13]

Khan first appeared on TV in a sitcom called Jutt and Bond back in 2001. His next acting stint came in 2007 with a Pakistani movie Khuda Kay Liye where he portrayed the role of a young Pakistani urban musician named Sarmad.^[14] The movie was a huge commercial and critical success however Khan could not continue in cinema owing to the poor infrastructure of Pakistani cinema at that time.^[15] Khan spoke about his experience with the movie as "It was a total knee-knocking experience. I was extremely nervous, I had very little can of film to work with. We were using one of those noisy old cameras to film. Every time the camera would start rolling, I’d be thinking, "This is it."" ^[16]

He decided to pursue acting career on Television. In 2008, he stepped into full-time drama serials appearing in Anjum Shehzad's travel adventure drama series Satrangi. Later he also appeared in Dil Deke Jayen Ge and Jeevan Ki Rahoon Main.^[17]

It was in 2010 when Khan earned major accolades in his television career from critics and audience for playing the role of Hassan in Period drama Dastaan, it starred Sanam Baloch opposite him and was directed by Haissam Hussain ^[18] After the success of Dastaan, Khan and Baloch were cast in two more serials Kuch Pyar Ka Pagalpan and Akbari Asghari immediately after Dastaan. Both shows were declared commercially successful. Khan considers Akbari Asghari as his career best performance; he played the role of a cunning villager named Asghar who conspires to take hold of his uncle's wealth.^[19]

In 2011, Khan became a household name after playing the role of Asher Hussain, a wealthy man who marries his middle-class cousin, in the critically and commercially successful drama Humsafar.^[6] Humsafar received high Television Rating Points and went on to win the Best TV Play (Satellite) award at the 12th Lux Style Awards.^[6] Khan was praised for his performance and he won the Best TV Actor (Satellite) award for his portrayal of Asher Hussain in the same ceremony.^[6][20][21] After Humsafar, Khan next appeared in the drama Ashk which received mixed reviews from audience and critics for its execution.^[22]

Next benchmark success of Khan's career came with the immensely popular show Zindagi Gulzar Hai hitting the Pakistani television screen in 2012-13. He played the role of a rich college going student named Zaroon Junaid opposite actress Sanam Saeed. Khan's performance earned him accolades from both viewers and reviewers. He won multiple awards for the show including Best Actor (Popular) award at the 2nd Hum Awards and Best Actor satellite at 13th Lux Style Awards ^[23][24] His natural chemistry with Sanam Saeed earned huge appreciation from the audience and critics alike; the couple won the Best Onscreen Couple award in both popular and jury categories at the 2nd Hum Awards.^[24] The series was aired in India on the newly launched channel Zindagi from 13 June 2014 to 18 July 2014.^[25][26][26]

In the first half of 2013, Khan was seen in two Telefilms Behadd and Armaan. He played the titular role in Armaan, along with Vasay Chaudhry and Aamina Sheikh, a remake of the 1966 film of the same name.^[27] Khan was chosen for the role due to his similarity in looks and style with Waheed Murad; the hero of the original Armaan. Later that year Khan's TV project Numm was aired on Geo TV. Numm was a highly anticipated show but met lukewarm reception from viewers after first few episodes were broadcast. Khan's portrayal of protagonist Wali Bakht Khan, a feudal scion, was praised however overall response to the show failed to generate good TV ratings for the show.

Recently, Fawad was given 'International Icon of the Year' award at the prestigious 3rd Hum Awards held in March 2015 in Dubai.

Khan was supposed to make his Bollywood debut soon after Khuda ke lye was released. But due to unstable political situation between Pakistan and India after Mumbai attacks things could not materialize. "This is certainly not the first Bollywood project that was offered to me, Way back in 2008, I was supposed to fly down to Mumbai to meet several producers and directors, but I wasn’t able to make it. When Khoobsurat came along, there was no way I could say no. I mean, it was the chance to meet and work with a legend such as Anil Kapoor." said Khan in an interview he gave in 2014.^[28]

In 2014, Khan made his debut in Bollywood in Shashanka Ghosh's Khoobsurat opposite Sonam Kapoor.^[29] A remake of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1980 hit of the same name starring Rekha and Rakesh Roshan, the film revolves around Sonam Kapoor's character, Dr. Mili Chakravarty, who is a middle class physiotherapist from Delhi.^[30] Khan plays Yuvraj Vikram Singh Rathore, Mili's love interest and the son of her patient; a Royal Indian family.^[30] Movie received positive to mediocre reviews, however Khan's performance was praised by the critics and noted as one of the highlights of the film.^[31][32] Moreover, the film emerged as a box office success, being declared as a "hit" by various media outlets. The film was particularly well received in the UK, UAE and Pakistan owing to Khan's following in these countries for his previous television work.^[33][34]

Initially two separate rock bands, Ahmed Ali Butt's Entity and Khan's Paradigm were both active in the Lahore music scene since 1994 and 2000, respectively.^[35][36] During the early 2000s, the two bands collaborated with each other on the title track for Khan's and Butt's popular television sitcom, Jutt and Bond, when the show's director suggested that they do the title song together.^[35][36] Led by Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, the lead guitarist of Paradigm, the two bands collaborated and recorded the title song, Hamein Aazma, which played at the end of the show.^[35][37] In early 2002, advertisements for Pepsi's Battle of the Bands began to air on television, calling upon entries from aspiring Pakistani bands. Since independent compilations and releases on record were lacking on both sides of the band, they decided to send in "Hamein Aazma" as a collaborative effort, under the name of Entity Paradigm.^[35] It was during this time that Entity Paradigm (EP) officially came into existence, with Fawad Khan as the band's lead vocals.^[35][38] Entity Paradigm's debut album, Irtiqa, released in October 2003 and received wide critical appreciation, especially the popular romantic track Rahguzar.^[6][35] On 9 January 2007, the band disbanded due to various band members pursuing different projects.^[35] The band briefly reunited in 2010 to perform Bolo Bolo in the third season of the popular TV music show Coke Studio. In the same year, the band also released their patriotic single Shor Macha, written by Khan, Ahmed and Salman, and recorded at The Albert Studios.^[39]

Khan is no longer associated with the band. He quit when his acting career took the front seat in 2012. The band members announced his quit on official Facebook page of EP quoting As we all know that Fawad A Khan is extremely busy with his acting career therefore he has requested pardon from EP, Coincidently Waqar Khan has moved to Islamabad thus cannot continue with EP. Due to their current situations both are unable to give the time and effort that EP requires.We respect and understand their circumstances & wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors. We all have been together since 1999 and over the years have become a family. They both will always be missed but will always be with us in spirit. We thank them both for offering EP their support for future. ^[40]

Khan has occasionally walked the ramp for leading fashion designers of Pakistan. Talking about the modelling, Khan stated that he shies away from modelling and has only appeared in fashion shows as showstopper for his friends.^[41] Khan's appearances on ramp include walk for Munib Nawaz in 2010,^[42][43] Umar Sayeed in 2012,^[44] and for republic by Omar Farooq in 2015.^[45]

Khan is known for regularly improvising the scenes in his TV shows. He has expressed his interest in going behind the camera for writing and direction in future. To fulfill his desire, he co-wrote the screenplay of his Telefilm Armaan (2013 film) with Vasay Chaudhry and director of the movie Anjum Shahzad.^[46] Screenplay of the telefilm received positive reviews.^{[citation needed]}.^[46] He also wrote the lyrics for few songs such as Rahguzar during his association with Entity Paradigm ^[47]

Khan co-produced his telefilm Armaan along with 7th Sky Entertainment.^[46]

Khan is frequently hailed as the quintessential romantic face of Pakistani TV industry in the media. He is often credited with re-introducing the subtle romance to Pakistani television screens with his shows. According to Firstpost His old-world mannerisms, rugged looks and the way he slips Urdu into his English all come together to make Khan seem distinct in a very charming way from the big, flashy world of Bollywood.^[16] He has been particularly applauded for possessing the art of speaking with eyes both in Pakistani and Indian media. Maliha Rahman of DAWN wrote Fawad Khan has eyes that can go from guarded to piercing in the blink of a moment. He just as easily switches from rock star to romantic hero to anti-hero.^[48] Commenting on the acting prowess of Khan, the editor of Filmfare mentioned There is a thehraav in the way he handles his scenes. He knows the art of speaking with his eyes. His silences speak volumes. No other actor (and I'm talking purely in terms of acting here) made me come out in goosebumps as he does. ^[49]

Khan's show Zindagi Gulzar Hai received unprecedented success in India for a television show in such short span. Khan was praised for his natural performance and good looks. His popularity created a mass swooning and collective hysteria amongst female audience. A term "Fawad Fever" started circulating on social media; denoting his popularity.^[50]An Indian daily reported "Fawad Afzal Khan became a massive hit among girls since the first look hit the telly world. His charisma completely wooed the audience and they looked forward to the show" ^[51]

After the release of his debut Bollywood movie Khoobsurat, he sparked the leading Bollywood writers and magazines to take notice and applaud his looks and acting skills. He prompted Shobhaa De to take notice and declare him, in a column, to be "the yummiest, most sinful treat in town".^[52] Another review on Miss Malini's noted On the verge of sounding like Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction, I really think Fawad Khan was the breakout performer in this movie. He looks princely, acts princely, his face is princely, his beard is princely, and his biceps are totally king material. All hail Fawad Khan!.^[53] Koel Purie praised Khan's screen presence and wrote Fawad shows you how a real man does it. It being everything. His quiet screen presence makes you fuzzy and tingly and you really believe any minute he's going to jump out of the screen grab you, kiss you right on the mouth and whisk you away into his palace. His silky dialogue delivery transports you to an enchanted bygone era. And when he takes his top off in the dark you want all the Khans and the Kapoors to stop waxing or simply keep their shirts on. India, please lets keep him.^[54]

Post his Bollywood debut, Khan has frequently been voted into top slots of various fan's choice and editor's choice lists. Few among prominent ones include Best Dressed, Best Styled, Google's Most Searched Male Bollywood Actors in India 2014,^[55] Asia's Sexiest Men Eastern Eye ^[56], Times Celebex: Bollywood Stars' Rating top 50,^[57] Best Debutant of 2014,^[58] and 51 Most Popular Bollywood celebrities of 2014 by MensXp ^[59] etc.

Khan regularly participates in the charity and social causes in Pakistan and internationally. His most prominent association with charities include Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Islamic Relief. He dedicated his debut Bollywood movie Khoobsurat to the cancer patients of SKMCH&RC and routinely participates in the fundraising campaigns by the institution. Khan took forward his association with the SKMCH by appearing in its telethon fundraising campaign which was telecast on ARY Digital Network in January and February 2015. In 2013, 2014 & 2015 Khan visited the UK and USA for participating in charity dinner galas and concerts organized by the various charities.^[60]

Khan has shown his support to SOS Children's Villages by participating in the children carnivals organized in 2012 and 2014.^[61]

In 2012, Khan was appointed as a brand ambassador of the WWF Earth Hour campaign. Commenting on his role, he shared that it was an honor to be associated with the cause and he hoped he would be able to convince people to adopt a safer strategy for energy conservation in future.^[62]

Khan frequently appears in Print and electronic advertisements of the most popular fashion and lifestyle brands.^{[citation needed]}