“I feel nowadays, a good artiste is someone who can market themselves”, says Bhuvan Bam. The actor and YouTuber knows a thing or two about self-promotion, with over 20 million Instagram followers and close to 30 million YouTube subscribers. Bam started his YouTube journey in 2015, uploading skits and sketches about middle-class life. In less than a year, he had over a million subscribers. By 2018, he became the first Indian YouTuber to have over 10 million subscribers.
In 2020, Bam pivoted from sketches to making long-form shows. He released Dhindora in 2021; the episodic narrative had Bam playing his popular characters like Titu Mama. Following its thunderous success, the streaming landscape came calling.
In 2023, he co-wrote, co-created, produced and starred in JioHotstar’s Taaza Khabar , a rags-to-riches fable about greed centred on a young man who discovered he could predict the following day’s news. 2026 sees Bam stepping into his ‘actor era’, with his first lead role in a streaming show not produced by him. In Prime Video’s recently released The Revolutionaries, Bam plays Rash Behari Bose, a mastermind who makes it his life’s mission to cripple British rule in the early 1910s. Next year, he’ll be seen as the star of Dharma Productions’ Kuku Ki Kundali, a comedy directed by Sharan Sharma.
Bhuvan Bam in a still from ‘The Revolutionaries’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
In a freewheeling chat, Bam spoke to The Hindu about his meteoric rise, his journey from YouTuber to storyteller to actor, staying true to his massive fanbase, balancing creativity and strategy, and why he had to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos to pitch Dhindhora.
Edited Excerpts:
I want to go back to the start of your ‘storytelling chapter’, when you were co-writing and co-creating streaming shows you star in. It started with ‘Dhindhora’ back in 2021. What went through your mind when you first thought about the idea? Did people tell you you were crazy?
Only two or three people on my team knew I was thinking of something like this. I hustled a lot for that show; I’m very proud of it. I initially thought of it as a movie, but then Sacred Games came out, and OTT shows started in India. I thought, ‘What if I divide the movie into eight episodes?’ I had met Susan Wojcicki (YouTube CEO) briefly when she came to Mumbai, and I mentioned I wanted to do something bigger with my characters, and she told me to meet her whenever I was done ideating.
When the concept for Dhindhora was clear in my head, I realised she was at the World Economic Forum in Davos. So I spoke to my YouTube India team, and I asked them to make it happen. I was the only young chap in Switzerland amidst all these world leaders, and I met her during a party and started pitching the show, and she said, “I don’t want to listen. We’re making the show.” That’s when I started telling people that I was doing something like this.
Then we started pre-production. It was the first time my team and I used outside vendors and worked with a crew, and none of them understood what we were doing. They would see me shoot scenes as one character, then change and come back as another character and shoot those scenes. They found it very strange.
Then the show comes out, and it becomes a smash hit, getting hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. At that point, was everyone calling you with acting offers?
No. No one wanted a YouTuber. Even after I’d proven myself with Dhindhora. I thought my life would change, but nothing actually changed. I’m glad the calls didn’t come because that meant I got to make Taaza Khabar. It was Hussan and Abbas (Dalal)’s script. I wrote Dhindhora with them, and they told me this idea, and we started working on it together. We pitched that show to almost every platform, but only Hotstar agreed. The other platforms were only happy to do it if we went with an actor of their choice. I said, “I’ve spent six months with this world and this character. It has to be me”. And then we made it, and it did wonders for me. Even today, I meet so many directors and producers who tell me that you could make a movie out of Taaza Khabar and it would do crazy numbers in theatres because it has all of those masala tropes.
A still from ‘The Revolutionaries’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
After ‘Taaza Khabar’ reportedly became one of the most-watched shows of the year, did you get more attention from the industry?
Still no. I have to tell people that I have a new show out. So now I’m thinking, “What’s happening? Why is the industry not paying attention to the show?” But then, I met a few casting directors, and they told me that they assumed I didn’t want to do any acting work outside of what I produced, which wasn’t true. Then season two of Taaza Khabar happened, and after that I met Nikkhil (Advani) sir for The Revolutionaries.
You’ve said that when you started getting acting offers, it was often from producers who just wanted you for your online following. What are those meetings like, and what made ‘The Revolutionaries’ offer different?
Yeah, the meetings the marketing team presented were the ones where you knew they were only interested in your followers. I would always think, “This is the first meeting; why are you guys here? Your job starts after the thing is made”. And they would say, “No, we want to see how the numbers will do”. But with Nikkhil sir, it was never like that. He doesn’t care about all that, he’s a creative mind.
He just asked me if I wanted to perform the way he wanted or approach it differently. I told him Rash Behari Bose is already a big legend, but there’s very little video footage of him, so there was the advantage of making the character my own. And Nikkhil sir was always there to guide me. This was the first project where I was just an actor and didn’t have to get involved in all the logistics, which was very freeing.
Bhuvan Bam in a still from ‘The Revolutionaries’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
And now you’ve just finished shooting a Dharma movie. You’ve said for years that being on the big screen was always the dream. How did that happen?
I owe a lot to The Revolutionaries. Nikkhil sir told Karan (Johar) that I’m playing Bose in the show. Then Karan told me he had a few film ideas he wanted to run by me.
We’ve talked about other projects in the past, but I didn’t feel those were worth being a part of, and he was very gracious. And I heard the idea for Kuku Ki Kundali. It was just a first draft, but I felt like there was so much scope to make it exciting. But I told him I’d like to be creatively involved, especially in the jokes that were working and weren’t working, and he gave me that space.
And again, there were workshops and readings, and I got to act with Mr. (Manoj) Pahwa, which was amazing. For a good 35 days, I had a blast with the amazing cast, including Wamiqa (Gabbi) and Sharon Sharma, the director.
Is the film a small-town rom-com?
It’s not. My first feedback was to not let this become another small-town movie. The characters may be from a small town, but the problems affecting them shouldn’t be “small-town”. Every Indian family has to connect with it because it’s about Kundalis. I didn’t do the film because I thought, “this is my chance”. I’ll make chances for myself every five months. I just believed in the story and felt so much could be done with the script.
Have you seen the film yet?
I’ve seen the first half. I’m so happy.
Published – September 17, 2026 08:01 am IST
