Meet Bollywood hottie Prateik Babbar, star of Netflix’s LGBT film Cobalt Blue – how the son of celebrity couple Raj Babbar and Smita Patil battled drug addiction to save his career

Gone are the days when Bollywood churned out nothing but singing-and-dancing flicks. Indian cinema is – slowly but surely – producing more films that are closer to reality.

Netflix original Cobalt Blue is based on Sachin Kundalkar’s bestselling novel that had already garnered a lot of buzz, and has even been dubbed “India’s Call Me by Your Name” by netizens, given the two films’ depictions of coming- of-age LGBTQ+ romance. The film, which premiered on December 3, is about a brother and sister who both fall in love with the same man.

Playing the role of said man – a stranger who changes the sibling duo’s dynamic – Prateik Babbar is easily one of India’s most intriguing actors with a film career quite unlike those of more conventional Bollywood stars.

Here’s everything to know about the tall, dark and handsome Babbar.

He never met his mother

Prateik’s father is actor/politician Raj Babbar and his mum was yesteryear actress Smita Patil. One might presume that being born into a Bollywood family automatically guaranteed a happy childhood for little Prateik, but that wasn’t the case. His mother died from complications when he was only 14 days old and, while growing up, his relationship with his father was strained. He had his mother’s name tattooed on his chest, as revealed on an Instagram post earlier this year.

But there’s a silver lining to every story: Babbar grew up with his maternal grandmother, whom he simply adored. In a 2012 interview, the young actor told iDiva that, “My happiness lies in her. If I don’t see her, if I don’t hear her voice, my heart gets restless.”

He said web series revived his career