Ace Bhatti
Ace Bhatti is an actor, born 1969.
British television keeps handing Ace Bhatti a stethoscope, a warrant card or a council seat. The run starts with the BBC hospital series Cardiac Arrest, where he played Dr Rajesh Rajah from 1994 to 1995. Holding On followed in 1997, then NCS: Manhunt, the ITV series Cold Blood, New Street Law, a recurring part in the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures as Haresh Chandra, and Yusef Khan in EastEnders.
Look at the character list and a very specific casting instinct appears. He is the man institutions send in: Police and Crime Commissioner Rohan Sindwhani in Line of Duty, Mayor Kashif Hassan in No Offence, Dr Adu in The Feed, Dr Arun Mansoor in the 2023 hospital thriller Malpractice, Nazir Afzal in Three Girls. Those are all parts that live or die on whether the audience believes the man has authority before he opens his mouth, and Bhatti plays them without ever visibly reaching for it. He underplays, which is why directors trust him with the scene where someone has to say the difficult institutional thing out loud.
The film work is thinner and mostly decorative, apart from Bohemian Rhapsody, where he plays Bomi Bulsara and gets the domestic half of a film otherwise busy with stadiums. Three decades in, the record is a working actor's record: consistent, unshowy, and almost entirely on television.
Movies (3)
TV (15)
- Line of Duty (2012)
- Shakespeare & Hathaway - Private Investigators (2018)
- The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007)
- Alex Rider (2020)
- Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007)
- The Stranger (2020)
- Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands (2016)
- No Offence (2015)
- Band of Gold (1995)
- Cleopatra (1999)
- The Feed (2019)
- Malpractice (2023)
- Cardiac Arrest (1994)
- Fixer (2008)
- Three Girls (2017)
Where to start with Ace Bhatti
Bohemian Rhapsody is the widest door, though it is the least representative thing here. Watch it for the father, then go somewhere the writing is better.
That somewhere is Three Girls, which is the most serious use anyone has made of him. He plays Nazir Afzal, and the part needs exactly what he does best: quiet institutional weight, no speeches. Line of Duty uses the same quality for a very different purpose, since a Police and Crime Commissioner in that show is never simply a man doing his job.
After that, Malpractice and Cardiac Arrest bookend the career neatly, one a slick modern hospital thriller, the other a rough, funny, mid-90s BBC series that still has more bite than most of its descendants. The Sarah Jane Adventures is where a certain generation met him first, and No Offence is worth it if you like your police drama loud and rude.
British television drama
Thirty years of the good British serials, usually in a position of authority. Three Girls is the essential one, about the Rochdale abuse case; Line of Duty and The Stranger are the widest-reach; Band of Gold goes all the way back to 1995.
Films and family television
Bend It Like Beckham and Bohemian Rhapsody are the two films everybody has seen, both as a father. The Sarah Jane Adventures and Alex Rider are the children's and young adult television, which is a large and underrated part of the career.