Raghav Juyal Dare To Bare

From watching Shah Rukh Khan movies on repeat at single-screen theatres and getting smitten each time, to shooting a Bollywood movie with him, this Dehradun boy has indeed come a long way.

- Ananya Ghosh

But Raghav Juyal, who gave a 'killer' breakthrough performance as an actor in 2023, is back in spotlight with Netflix's The Ba***ds of Bollywood. His is the main-character energy and now he is ready to step into his leading-man era

You must be living under a rock if you have not heard about the 'King of Slow Motion'. Well, I was. Having not followed reality shows much, I had missed the entire phase where this dancing phenomenon burst onto the stage of Indian television.

I came across Raghav Juyal for the first time on YouTube where clips of Dance Plus, a dance reality show were going viral. More than the dancers, it was the cute and mischievous host that caught my attention. There was something very endearing about him. He was effortlessly relatable, yet there were flickers of a star inside. He would grab your attention and keep your eyes glued onto him even when he was just prancing around. Then one day, I saw him perform his signature slow-motion walk. It was so realistic that it seemed utterly surreal.

He soon dabbled in acting and after a few outings in movies and series like Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan (2023), Abhay 2 (2020), Bahut Hua Samman (2020), Street Dancer 3D (2020), Any Body Can Dance 2 (2015), Sonali Cable (2014), he once again blew my mind in 2023 when he appeared in Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's Kill—the cute host with an impish smile was now the unhinged and impulsive knife-wielding antagonist, Fani, prone to ultraviolence. Unlike most Bollywood villains, Fani was a character that was so ordinary that the sudden spurt of violence made him a terrifying antagonist.