From Afghan refugee to model-actor, this Swede walks tall in Bollywood

He walks in with a carefree swagger, his hulk of a frame hovering above you as the bearded model and actor returns my greeting. Meet the 43-year-old Swede of Afghan origin, Babrak Akbari, who is making waves with big-ticket films – Girish Malik’sTorbaaz followed by Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Panipat – both co-starring Dutt.

In the early 1990s — after the Soviet-Afghanistan war devastated hundreds of families and killed thousands — Babrak Akbari, barely past the threshold of 14, found himself at the Afghanistan border as a refugee. The young Akbari’s father was ailing and unable to provide for the family. Besides, there was limited access to medicines, hospitals or food. It was only after Akbari’s brother flew in from Sweden that the family found itself looking at the brighter side of life.

“We were living in tents. There were no doctors, no food or hospitals and my father wasn’t keeping well. The rest of us were too young and not in a condition to take care of the family,” Akbari tells WB before continuing, “When my brother got to know of our dismal state, he flew in to take us to Sweden.”

Three decades later, Akbari, now 43, is creating ripples in Bollywood starring alongside biggies like Sanjay Dutt and Arjun Kapoor. There’s also a method to his craft: He uses his traumatic experience as a displaced youngster and an eventful life in a European city to mould the characters that movies portray for the unwitting members of the audience.

“I have seen it all; I know what the director wants when he explains a story to me, which is why I can play all kinds of characters with ease,” he says confidence shining through his expressive Afghani eyes. “This is because I have lived a life in Europe and also that of Afghanistan, my native country,” he adds, sitting at the Jaipur-based On The House cafe, taking a break from his busy shooting schedules in the city.

The Swedish-Afghan actor has been flying in and out of Rajasthan for Panipat, directed by ace director Ashutosh Gowarikar. With a Pashto accent that’s a dead giveaway of his lineage, Gowarikar knew exactly why he wanted to cast Akbari for the upcoming period drama. 

With Indian movies quite popular in Afghanistan — where Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan are household names — it wasn’t tough for the actor to mouth dialogues in Hindi. It’s still surprising that he is the first Afghan actor to bag a substantial role in a Hindi movie. The actor, who has also worked in Swedish films and commercials, first bagged Torbaaz that deals with the subject of child suicide bombers in Afghanistan. Shot in Kyrgyzstan, the movie has Akbari playing a terrorist who trains young kids to become suicide bombers. After Torbaaz, he was cast for the period drama by Gowarikar. 

“Torbaaz director Girish Malik wanted actors with the real Afghani look. There are other actors of Afghan descent in the movie, those who have worked in Hollywood, but they don’t have a pashto accent — the pathani tone, as you would recognise it,” says Akbari, who will be seen with actors like Kapoor, Dutt, Kriti Sanon and Rahul Dev. 

His other love, besides acting, was football that he had to give up due to a knee injury. “Since I wasn’t allowed to play the sport after the injury, I began to focus on acting,” he says. Both come together in a commercial where Babrak appears with Sweden’s national team goalkeeper, Thomas Ravelli. “Acting took a backseat for a while as my children were growing up. I was married early and couldn’t devote much time to acting as I needed to give time to the family,” says the actor, whose oldest is a strapping 21-year-old lad and the youngest is a girl, Angela, now 8. 

Two of his Swedish movies are also set for release. Another one is a short movie with his daughter. Titled after his daughter, Angela, the film revolves around a NATO soldier who has lost everything he held dear, including his wife and daughter. 

Babrak is a living testimony of die-heard spirit, which he has come pre-packaged with his Afghan upbringing, one which has seen him through difficult times to hoist him on the grand stage of life where the spotlight is on him, and the inconvenienced childhood has been relegated to the backstage.