We Need To Talk About Ishaan Khatter In Netflix's The Royals

With The Royals, Ishaan Khatter Crowns A New Kind of Mainstream Hero

As Bollywood reinvents itself and redefines stardom, Khatter’s worth lies not in the footfalls he guarantees, but in the norms he overturns, writes Swetha Ramakrishnan .

THERE ARE ONLY TWO REASONS why people are talking about the new Netflix show The Royals . First, the entire discourse around Bhumi Pednekar ’s acting (which deserves a separate thinkpiece, so moving on swiftly for now) and second, Ishaan Khatter . Shirtless Ishaan Khatter. A flirty Ishaan Khatter. A “wow-he-looks-good-with-clothes-ON-too” Ishaan Khatter. A “there-is-something-about-him-right” Ishaan Khatter. And so on. It would not be a stretch to say that he made the show much easier to get through…borderline bingeable even. And while The Royals is meant to be an easy-breezy, rom-com-esque show, Khatter stands out amidst a long line of eye candy that the series presents on a platter (Dino Morea with a dad bod, I’m watching — closely).

I believe Ishaan Khatter is a topic in everyone’s conversations for reasons that go beyond aggressive PR machinery (and countless shirtless pictures that bombard us from every corner of the internet), and I’m going to try my best to break this down without sounding like a schoolgirl with a crush.

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Before we can critique or celebrate Khatter’s effortless brand of performance, it’s important to understand and contextualise the current landscape of male representation in Hindi cinema. In the past few years, we’ve bid goodbye to the “chocolate boy” romantic lead, making way for action heroes; characters who are brawny, brooding and don’t say much. They can pack a punch or two, but emotional empathy? What’s that? Let’s look at the highest-grossing films over the last few years: Animal, Pathaan, Kabir Singh, and War have set a dangerous precedent of celebrating fragmented machismo. These characters use violence and trauma to express basic emotions. Their suppressed emotions become a thumping, bass-heavy background score. Their “romance” is often gendered, and the saviour complex is an accessory they wear on their sleeve.

This new action/masculine hero, capable of bringing in 1000 crores at the box office, is a notable shift in an industry that, otherwise, has associated strength with stoicism. Hindi cinema has a legacy of charismatic, emotionally expressive men — think Dilip Kumar and his expressive eyes, Rajesh Khanna’s soft flirtatiousness, or Shah Rukh Khan’s grand and tremulous declarations of love. Over time (read as: a multiplex boom and a “pan-Indian” lens), the soft romantic hero gave way to a more cynical, weaponised version of masculinity. Emotional articulation and empathy are typically seen as signs of weakness for the Hindi film hero. Sensitivity is a no-show unless it’s a dramatised scene to make a larger socio-cultural point. In this landscape, Khatter is different, almost radically.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of his performance in The Royals is how he plays against the stereotypes of his character. A fictitious royal heir, entrapped in inheritance politics, has to make tough decisions around royal history and embrace modern corporate mechanisms. His performance could have easily gone down the typical route all privileged characters go through. An arc of arrogance, entitlement and emotional detachment. An Indian Mr Darcy, if you will (and we know there’d be an audience for that too). But Khatter’s role embodies a kind of softness that is almost delicious. It’s not put-on; he nearly toes the line with his sympathetic long gazes and willingness to let his romantic partner know that he sees her. Like, really sees her. In many ways, he is a royal without armour, a prince without pretensions. That vulnerability is what makes his performance resonate. In the final few episodes, when he chases Bhumi Pednekar’s character, Sophia, all the way to Madurai, he doesn’t make a grand exhibition of his love. He quietly holds space for her nervous breakdown; he slips into her subconsciousness and tells her that he’s not going anywhere. He tells her that he loves her, and then admits that it was very easy to say that. And the eyes; they do so much heavy-lifting. Despite the shirtless scenes, I found myself staring harder in scenes where he wore a plain shirt or kurta and jeans. A royal who looks like an everyday guy — isn’t that the dream?

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Technically, Khatter is a “nepo-baby” and “insider” and all those other labels. His parents are actors. His step-brother is a superstar. His extended family consists of actors. And yet, he began his career with Majid Majidi’s Beyond the Clouds . In interviews, when he speaks about his debut film, there’s a twinkle in his eye, as if to say, “I cannot believe I get to be a part of the movie business.” His second film — Dhadak — made him more mainstream, but it was criticised for being a glossier version of its original, Marathi blockbuster Sairat . Since then, all his projects have danced between genres: Phone Bhoot, A Suitable Boy, and more recently, the international Netflix show The Perfect Couple, in which he carries off the responsibility of being the resident eye candy.

The Royals is perhaps his biggest project yet in terms of targeted audience, but it’s impressive that he gets to be mainstream on his own terms. It’s a welcome change to see Khatter embrace a high-profile streaming show with commercial appeal, but also choose to anchor it in emotional intelligence and transparency, rather than the boring masculine tropes. The series has dangerously less going for it apart from being extremely easy on the eye (both in terms of talent and backdrop), but Ishaan Khatter emerges — shirtless — from the pool of mediocrity that The Royals swims in.

If you enjoy crown conflict dramas like The Royals, do check out these shows and films on OTTplay Premium.

The benchmark of what makes a “bankable” star changes every few years. All of Hindi cinema’s successful movie stars today have had to wade through either one of these cliches to “make it big”: 1. a loud, nationalist film in which they can demonstrate a chest-thumping saviour complex, or 2. a toxically masculine character in an even more toxically masculine film. His brother, too, fell prey to this narrative, but Khatter has a promising journey ahead if he manages to keep emotionally transparent characters as his weapon. At a time when Bollywood is desperate for reinvention and when old definitions of “stardom” are being challenged, Khatter’s value doesn’t lie in the footfalls he can manage in theatres but in how many stereotypes he can dismantle. Watch out.

Watch Ishaan Khatter's Beyond The Clouds

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