Actor Mashhoor Amrohi is having a moment, and it is coming from a role that barely lasts two scenes. In Dhurandhar: The Revenge, he plays Nawab Shafiq, a character allegedly inspired by former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The resemblance has sparked a flood of memes online, with many viewers jokingly asking how director Aditya Dhar managed to “convince” Sharif himself to appear in the film.
The attention has been unexpected, even for Amrohi. What stands out is not just the chatter, but the disbelief around it. Many viewers are convinced the transformation is either prosthetics taken too far or simply AI at work, something the actor himself did not see coming. More so for the fact that in real life, Amrohi doesn’t look like the character he had been asked to play.
How Mashhoor Amrohi stepped into the shoes of Nawab Shafiq in Dhurandhar Part 2
Mashhoor Amrohi’s striking resemblance to Pak PM Nawaz Sharif in Dhurandhar 2 is the talk of the town. It is no coincidence that the character name is also similar – Nawab Shafiq. You’d be surprised to know how Mashhoor Amrohi stepped into the role of Shafiq, despite not resembling him in real life at all. “For me, the biggest compliment is that nobody believes it is me. Some are saying that it’s AI. I had not anticipated this kind of adulation. There are memes and pictures all over the internet,” Amrohi told Mid-Day.
Off-screen, there is little to connect Amrohi to the political figure he portrays. The likeness seen on screen is the result of a deliberate and demanding process. Director Aditya Dhar, along with casting director Mukesh Chhabra, believed he could disappear into the role, but getting there took time. Amrohi recalled, as he told the same portal, “When we sat for the first make-up test, we didn’t quite achieve what the director wanted. We had to depict the [same] body weight, face, and ageing. Preetisheel [Singh, make-up artiste] went all out – I sat through more than eight hours of make-up daily for four days. For the weight, I had a bodysuit with a paunch.”
Mashhoor Amrohi is veteran filmmaker Kamal Amrohi’s grandson
Interestingly, Nawab Shafiq was not even the part he initially tested for. Amrohi shared that his first audition was for the role of Major Iqbal, which eventually went to Arjun Rampal. The shift happened later, shaped more by the director’s instinct than a formal process.
And the instinct seems to have paid off. Despite limited screen time, Mashhoor’s character left a strong impression, pulling attention not just to the performance but also to Amrohi’s background. He is the grandson of veteran filmmaker Kamal Amrohi, known for cult films such as Mahal (1949), Pakeezah (1972), Daaera (1953), and Razia Sultan (1983). Though he comes from a film legacy, Dhurandhar: The Revenge has ensured that he is being noticed on his own terms.
On the work front, Mashhoor Amrohi has worked in films such as Accused, Freedom at Midnight and War.
