Asad Shan

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Asad Shan is a British actor, filmmaker, TV presenter and real estate investor. Born in London, he started his career in investment banking with RBS (ABN AMRO) and HSBC before moving into entertainment. He won Mr. Asia UK and trained in acting in New York. His acting and directorial debut was 7 Welcome to London, which released in the UK to strong reception and is considered one of the best-known British-made Hindi-language films in the UK. He has worked as a VJ for B4U Music and hosts on Zee TV’s Zing, including the weekend show Brits Bollywood and the daily Grinds My Teeth. He has appeared in NYFA and Lee Strasberg productions, including East is East and The Glass Menagerie. He has endorsed campaigns for Sky Digital, HSBC and One for the Boys, a charity chaired by Samuel L. Jackson.

Asad grew up in London; his grandparents moved there from Jhelum in the 1940s. He studied at Brentwood School in Essex and pursued a degree in law and management. After two years in corporate broking and ECM, he trained in acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in New York and studied film performance at the New York Film Academy before moving to Mumbai to work in Bollywood. There he became a popular VJ for B4U Music, earning Best & Sexiest VJ in 2009, and hosted shows such as Just Request, Star Stop, Flash and India’s Top Ten.

Returning to London, he founded Iconic Productions UK Limited and produced 7 Welcome to London, in which he starred as Jai; the film released across the UK on 9 March 2012. In 2016 he starred in London Life as Raj, a story about Indian students in the UK. Since 2011 he has been a familiar face on Zing as host of Brits Bollywood and the show Grinds My Teeth, and he created and hosted The Film Show on Zing TV from 2015 to 2018. He began work on the drama serial Aabgeenay in Karachi in 2018, but filming was halted after 70% completion. In 2023 he made a special appearance in An Action Hero (Netflix). In 2024 the British feature Tell me about it, directed by Suman Hanif, released on Amazon Prime Video, with Asad in the lead; it is set in Bradford. He is writing his next feature. He also enjoys county-level tennis, outdoor sports and hiking, with an interest in French and South Korean cinema.