Kanan Gill

Kanan Gill is a comedian-turned-actor who's basically the guy who made roasting bad Bollywood movies cool before it became mainstream. Starting his comedy journey in 2013, he won the Punch Line Bangalore Competition and quickly built a cult following through his YouTube series Pretentious Movie Reviews, where he and Biswa Kalyan Rath dissect hilariously terrible Bollywood films with razor-sharp wit. His transition to the big screen happened with Noor opposite Sonakshi Sinha, proving he could hold his own in actual cinema. Beyond acting, he's been instrumental in shaping YouTube's comedy ecosystem in India, from spearheading the YouTube Comedy Hunt to judging on Comicstaan—basically helping launch a whole generation of comedians. What sets Kanan apart is his refreshingly honest, no-filter approach that refuses to take Bollywood's absurdities too seriously. He brings an engineer's precision (thanks to his MSRIT background) to his comedy, dissecting not just punchlines but the entire culture around cinema. His comedy specials like Keep It Real and the recent Is This It? showcase his evolution from a YouTube personality into a legitimate stand-up voice with depth. Whether he's on screen or on a microphone, Kanan's contribution to Indian comedy has been making it okay to laugh at ourselves—and that's exactly what Bollywood needed.