Ace Bhatti

Ace Bhatti
Born	Ahsen Rafiq Bhatti Nottingham, England
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1984–present
Notable work	The Sarah Jane Adventures, Cold Blood, EastEnders

Ahsen Rafiq "Ace" Bhatti is a British actor. Early in his career, he appeared in the BBC series Cardiac Arrest (1994–1995), Holding On (1997), NCS: Manhunt (2001–2002), and New Street Law (2006–2007), as well as the ITV series Cold Blood (2005–2008). He had a recurring role in the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures (2008–2011) and played Yusef Khan in the soap opera EastEnders (2010–2011).

Early life and education

Bhatti was born in Nottingham. He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Career

Bhatti began acting at age fourteen starring in the children series Dramarama, however it wasn't until the nineties until he furthered his career, for which he appeared in the British soap opera Family Pride, Band of Gold, Holding On, and most notably as Dr Rajesh Rajah in Cardiac Arrest, among many other television roles during this time. In 2002, Bhatti made a brief appearance in Bend It Like Beckham, played the central character Dave in BBC Three's dark comedy Grease Monkeys (2003), and played flashy Ash Aslan in 2006's New Street Law. In 2007, he took on a minor role for two episodes in the first series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl as Ashok, a regular client of the main character, Belle. He reappeared in 2010 in the same role. In 2008, Bhatti appeared as a supporting character in the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and reprised his role for the third series in 2009, the fourth series in 2010 and in the fifth series in 2011. Although credited in his early career by his birth name Ahsen Bhatti, Bhatti changed his professional name to Ace Bhatti (Ace is a childhood nickname). In 2011, he played Commander Khokar in the BBC2 series The Shadow Line.

In April 2013, Bhatti became a patron of Theatre Royal Wakefield. In 2018, he played Freddie Mercury's father Bomi Bulsara in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

EastEnders

In 2010, Bhatti was cast as Yusef Khan, the father of already established character Afia Masood (Meryl Fernandes). Bhatti was already known to EastEnders executive producer Bryan Kirkwood when he auditioned for the part, as Kirkwood and Bhatti worked on Coronation Street at the same time. Bhatti was the only actor who auditioned for the part of Yusef. In fact, Wadia recommended Bhatti to Kirkwood to play Yusef, as she "thought that he definitely had the quality that Yusef would need—which is a very ambiguous but charming quality!" Bhatti explained to Digital Spy that the EastEnders cast are very welcoming. He explained: "They're so welcoming. There's a lot of joking about. I'm having a great time at EastEnders - it's a real privilege to be here. I've known Nitin and Nina Wadia, who plays Zainab, for a very long time and we've always got on very well. Nitin and I play tense scenes together so it's nice that we can have a laugh afterwards." He featured in a domestic violence storyline in late 2011 with co-star Nina Wadia who plays Yusef's wife Zainab. Yusef starts to abuse Zainab both physically and mentally. He forbids Zainab to leave the house and later starts using her son, Kamil, to control her. Wadia explains that she wants the storyline to have a positive impact against real-life violence. She told BBC News: "I think the idea behind showing a strong woman like Zainab changing like this is to show that it can happen to even the strongest of women. They can change and they can be manipulated - especially if they're isolated from their friends and family. The manipulator can take advantage, so it's to prove that it can even happen to people like her. To be honest, if even one woman rings that Action Line at the end of the show and there's some difference made to her life, I'll feel like we've done our job," she continued. "It is a serious issue and I'm glad it's being highlighted. I hope that it wakes anyone up - not just women, I know that there are abused men out there as well. So if it gives anyone the strength to leave a relationship like that, we'll have done our job." The scenes where Yusef refused to let Zainab see Kamil pulled in 8.69m viewers at 7.30pm. BBC Three's repeat of the episode later secured 994k viewers at 10pm.

Selected filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Brothers in Trouble	Irshad
	The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Treasure of the Peacock's Eye	Indian Lieutenant	TV Movie
1997	Sixth Happiness	Cyrus
1999	Last Christmas	Doctor	TV Movie
2002	Bend It Like Beckham	Nairobi Grandson
2004	The Deputy	Nickhall Gangwani	TV Movie
	The Secret of Year Six	Abdul	Short
2006	Bradford Riots	Faisal
2007	Frankenstein	Dr. Dhillon	TV Movie
2009	Wish 143	Consultant	Short
2010	My Lad	Aziz	Short
	It's a Wonderful Afterlife	Tej
2013	The Last Witch	Doctor	TV Movie
2015	Amar Akbar & Tony	Doc
2016	High Strung, Free Dance	Ravi
2018	Bohemian Rhapsody	Bomi Bulsara
2019	Break Clause	Kadir
2023	Runs in the family	Varun Chetty

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Dramarama	Eddie	Josephine Jo
1991	Family Pride	Suresh
1994	Finney	McDade's Minder	4 episodes
1994–95	Cardiac Arrest	Dr. Rajesh Rajah	27 episodes
1995	The Ghostbusters of East Finchley	DI Cunliffe	2 episodes
1995–96	Band of Gold	Dez	4 episodes
1997–98	The Bill	Sunil Davdra	4 episodes
1997	Holding On	Zahid	8 episodes
1998	Verdict	Sanjay Mehta
1999	Cleopatra	Sceptical Citizen	2 episodes
	Grafters	Tom	5 episodes
2000	Harbour Lights	Ramesh
	Peak Practice	Specialist
	Silent Witness	DCI Ranjeet Naval	Episode: "The World Cruise" (2 parts)
	Urban Gothic	Jim Takeshi
2001	Dalziel and Pascoe	Ravi Ghataura
	Love or Money	Ali
2001-2	NCS: Manhunt	DC Johnny Khan	7 episodes
2002–05	Holby City	Andy Fishman
2003	Emmerdale	Bobby Khan
	The Second Coming	Peter Gupta	2 episodes
2003–04	Grease Monkeys	Dave Dhillon	20 episodes
2004	Bodies	Rajesh Rajah	2 episodes
2005	Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee	Deepak	3 episodes (mini series)
	Ultimate Force	Handsome
2005–06	Coronation Street	Jayesh Parekh	12 episodes
2005-08	Cold Blood	Ajay Roychowdury	5 episodes
2006	Blue Murder	Saadiq Aziz
	Goldplated	Haq	4 episodes
2006–07	New Street Law	Ash Aslan	10 episodes
2007	Casualty	Andy Fishman
2007–08	Secret Diary of a Call Girl	Ashok	3 episodes
2008	Kiss of Death	Miles Trueman
2008–11	The Sarah Jane Adventures	Haresh Chandra	24 episodes
2009	Casualty	Rafiq
	Coming Up	Shahid
	The Fixer	Supari
	New Tricks	Geeten Mistry
	Spooks	Amish Mani
2010–11	EastEnders	Yusef Khan	94 episodes
2011	The Shadow Line	Commander Khokar	4 episodes
2012	Midsomer Murders	Harry Dutta	1 episode
2014	Silent Witness	Mousa Rashid	Episode: "Commodity" (2 parts)
	Silk	Dani Kakwani	2 episodes
	From There to Here	DI Graves	2 episodes
	In the Club	Vinay	1 episode
	Lewis	Rizwan Nooran	Episode: "Entry Wounds"
2015	Father Brown	Syrus	Episode: "The Lair of the Libertines"
	Jekyll and Hyde	Dr. Vishal Najaran	3 episodes
2016	Shetland	Calvin Sarwar	3 episodes
	Beowulf	Harken	4 episodes
	DCI Banks	Malik Nadir	4 episodes
2017	Three Girls	Nazir Afzal	2 episodes
	Still Star-Crossed	Venetian Moneylender	Episode: "The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth"
	Love, Lies and Records	Mr. Hussain	1 episode
2018	Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators	Chester Patterson	Episode: "This Rough Magic"
	No Offence	Mayor Hassan	3 episodes
	Hounslow Diaries	Uncle Abdul Azeez	Episode: "Pilot"
2019–21	Line of Duty	PCC Rohan Sindwhani	8 episodes
2020	The Stranger	Parth Kuhalam
2020-2024	Alex Rider	John Crawley	21 episodes
2021	Baptiste	Nadeem	Series 2: 6 episodes
	Agatha Raisin	Sylvan Dubois	Episode: There Goes The Bride
2022	Ackley Bridge	Imran Farooqi
	The Good Karma Hospital	Jules Fonseca	Series 4: 2 episodes
2023	The Effects of Lying	Naveen	TV film
2024	McDonald & Dodds	George Sharma	Episode: "The Rule of Three"
TBA	Malpractice	TBA	Upcoming role

External links

• Ace Bhatti at IMDb
• Ace Bhatti at the BFI's Screenonline
• Ace Bhatti Interview with Asiana Mag
• Ace Bhatti Interview with LeftLion Magazine