Right as actor Ishaan Khatter tells me that a film is like a symphony—with its movement, its collaborative force, its natural highs and lows—two voices begin to harmonize one room over. “The universe is conspiring,” Khatter smiles. From where he’s been to where he’s going, the 29-year-old’s journey has been nothing short of a symphonic dance, and he’s doing it with his arms wide open.

Khatter speaks to me via video chat from London, and he speaks with a refreshing level of passion and wisdom. It’s clear he has lived multiple lives in one, but isn’t that what acting truly is? A radical submission towards empathy? Living infinite lives in one body? “It is the best job in the world,” he bubbles.

Following the release of Netflix’s limited series The Perfect Couple this fall, Ishaan Khatter’s career has soared to new heights. The show has quickly become a global sensation, amassing 20.3 million views within days of its release and securing the top spot on Netflix worldwide. In the murder mystery, which features Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber, Khatter delivers a captivating performance as the mysterious murder suspect Shooter Dival. The show—and Khatter’s dextrous articulation of Dival—has quickly won over American audiences, thrusting the actor into the Hollywood limelight.

Though he may be a fresh face to Western audiences, Khatter is no stranger to fame. His breakout role arrived in 2017, in Iranian auteur Majid Majidi’s award-winning Beyond the Clouds, where Khatter delivered a layered performance as Amir, a drug runner and street hustler. Since, he’s held lead roles in Bollywood films Dhadak and Khaali Peeli, and played one of the leads in English series A Suitable Boy. In the forthcoming year, Khatter will play a contemporary Prince Charming in Netflix’s The Royals, a modern- day romance merging two worlds together, following the Indian royal family and a tech startup whiz.

“I have never been someone who wanted to predefine my career trajectory,” says Khatter. There is a level of trust he has in the universe, in its invisible rhythms and grand timing. He’s excited about the vastness of possibility and allows opportunities to unfold on their own terms in new spaces. He shares, “I don’t like to define a character too much before starting it. It kind of tells you what it needs to be. Every character has the potential to be their own three-dimensional being.”

Khatter’s characters are unified by a distinct physicality. Whether he’s dancing, playing polo, walking a certain way, or adopting a subtle mannerism, each of his characters carry identifiable signatures in their movements. Khatter believes that God is in the details, and that truth resides in motion. While he can’t give away much about his current project, he hints: “The character I’m playing at the moment is something I would not have imagined for myself, but I do find myself in there. There is always something that becomes an entry point into a character. It could be a behavioral tick, an emotion, an experience, or a larger description of things. That’s the fun.”

His motion-based acting shouldn’t come as a surprise— Khatter is a classically trained dancer, and he comes from a family of artists; he grew up watching his mother (also a classically trained dancer) perform. At a young age, he observed as his brother Shahid Kapoor, 15 years his senior, blossomed into megastardom at the age of 21. Though he comes from a creative lineage, his own journey was entirely singular.

“When you grow up in a family of artists, from a young age, art enters your subconscious in a way you can’t even put your finger on. My family allowed me to grow independently and be my own person. All you’ve got in this world is your own unique voice.” He continues, “I’m often asked, ‘Working with someone like Nicole Kidman, how do you have the confidence to hold your own as a young artist?’ I think it largely comes from the fact that it is not a borrowed inclination or borrowed passion. This is who I’ve been my whole life.”

On Khatter’s transition from working in Indian films to English-language projects, the actor explains that in Indian culture, storytelling and music are inherently connected. In all Indian cinema, the use of song and dance is a natural extension of the narrative rather than an abrupt intrusion into the story. The musical format flows seamlessly, reflecting the culture’s deep connection with rhythm, expression, and poetry. “Of course, there is a difference in the language.” Khatter adds, “Language is culture, and I think there’s a lot of beauty and philosophy in the language, but beyond that, we’re all the same animals.”

We speak about change and how it’s life’s only constant. “I think there’s always opportunity in change,” he says. “You hold on to the things that serve you well, and life is going to life as it is. It’s not like you can change the current of the ocean just by appreciating it, so it’s wise to accept.” Khatter isn’t someone who gets homesick, but says that filming The Perfect Couple was the first time he felt it creep in. For four months, the cast and crew transformed the quiet, off-season Cape Cod into their own little world, bonding through barbecues, bonfires, axe-throwing, and even a night out at a drag show.

A quote from one of Khatter’s past interviews pops into my mind: “I liked that my character was objectified.” I go back and forth about whether I should ask him to expand, until finally I do. He throws his head back, laughs, and tells me he uttered the line with a sense of play, but that being seen as attractive by the public has been a lot of fun. “A lot of people have remarked that they don’t usually see South Asian men in films being perceived that way in Western projects. Perhaps it’s a bit fresh, so it caught people’s eyes.” Khatter trails off, “I don’t know what more to say. I’m going red in the face!”

Cheeks flushed, laughs exchanged, our conversation travels to the topic of vulnerability. Khattar tells me he has always considered himself an empath, and that from a young age, stories have provided him a level of catharsis. “The business of storytelling is an act of empathy,” He affirms. “When I read a book, when I watched a film, I was able to feel things that were beyond my own experience in life and I was able to release things I didn’t get to do in my own life.”

As the number of eyes on Ishaan Khatter continues to grow, he remains highly aware of the way success can change a person. Empathy informs every step of where he’s going and the direction he believes the entertainment industry should go. “We have the smarts, the innovation, the ambition as a collective to continue growing and evolving. But the one thing that will string it all together and hold it all together is a sense of humanity.”

“When you become an actor,” he adds, “you’re hungry to put yourself out there. To express yourself. You have things to say, but then with time, when you get successful, it’s easy to get caught up in the logistics of it all. In the business of it all. In the people management of it all. Sometimes, thick skin grows because the job is tough. You are literally putting yourself out there for judgment. So sometimes,you lose that vulnerability.You lose that sense of empathy. You lose what got you there in the first place... and that’s what I’m most afraid of.” He pauses and concludes, “I keep reminding myself: If I am in a higher position of power, stardom, whatever you want to call it, that’s the one thing I don’t want to let go of. That vulnerability is what put me here in the first place.” 

Photographed by David Reiss

Styled by Alexander Roth

Written by Audrey Weisburd 

Grooming: Rino Riccio