Paresh Rawal

Rawal was born and brought up in Mumbai. He is married to Swaroop Sampat, an actress and winner of the Miss India contest in 1979. Paresh and Swaroop have two sons, Aditya and Anirudh. He is an alumnus of Narsee Monjee College of Commerce & Economics, Vile Parle, Mumbai.

Another notable lead role came in 2002 when Rawal portrayed one of three blind bank robbers in the hit film Aankhen, co-starring Amitabh Bachchan, Aditya Pancholi, Akshay Kumar, Arjun Rampal and Sushmita Sen. Rawal, for the remainder of the 2000s, was seen in mainly comedy oriented multi-starrers, mostly amongst the lead protagonists such as in Awara Paagal Deewana (2002), Hulchul (2004), Garam Masala (2005), Hungama, Deewane Huye Paagal (2005), Malamaal Weekly (2006), Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006), Chup Chup Ke (2006), Bhagam Bhag (2007), Shankar Dada MBBS (Telugu), Bhool Bhulaiyaa, Welcome, Mere Baap Pehle Aap (2008) and De Dana Dan (2009). In 2010, Rawal acted in the movie Aakrosh, based on honour killing.

In 2012, Paresh Rawal played the lead role in the superhit OMG – Oh My God!. Good friend Akshay Kumar was seen supporting him, and both won rave reviews for their roles. He has also had a very successful acting career in Gujarati plays, the latest hit being Dear Father. For television he has produced several Hindi soaps including Zee TV's Teen Bahuraaniyaan, Sahara One's Main Aisi Kyunn Hoon and Colors' Laagi Tujhse Lagan.

He won as the Bharatiya Janata Party's Member of Parliament (MP) from Ahmedabad East constituency in the 2014 Indian general election. In 2014, he was awarded Padma Shri.

On 21 May 2017, Paresh Rawal tweeted: "Instead of tying stone pelter on the army jeep, tie Arundhati Roy" making a reference to the allegations that Indian soldiers tied a stone-pelter in Kashmir to their jeep and used him as a human shield, and it was presumed that he wanted Roy to be used as a human shield. Rawal's tweet provoked a controversy, and he was accused of advocating violence against women. He was criticised by fellow actor Swara Bhaskar. Rawal was also criticised by Congress leader Shobha Ojha while filmmaker Ashoke Pandit supported his tweet.

He addressed the tweet controversy in July 2017 by saying with regard to Roy that he was exercising his freedom of expression – "If she is right, then even I am right. If she regrets making the comments, then I also regret. Agreed that this is fake news, but what about the comments that she made on 2002 Godhra riots? If you have freedom of expression then even I have it"

His latest notable release is Rajkumar Hirani's Sanju with Ranbir Kapoor. He plays actor Sunil Dutt's role in the movie. He is also reprising his role as Baburao Ganpatrao Apte in Hera Pheri 3 which will release in 2019.

On 10 September 2020 he was appointed as the chief of the National School of Drama, by the President of India