Filmfare OTT Awards 2025: Jaideep Ahlawat Recalls Making History As 1st Best Actor Winner, Says 'I Was So Lucky'

The Filmfare OTT Awards 2025 has announced the date of its star-studded ceremony. The sixth edition of the awards will be held on December 15. At a press conference in Mumbai today, Jaideep Ahlawat and

Sanya Malhotra spoke about how the awards changed their careers. For Jaideep, his first-ever Filmfare win was history-making. Here's what he said about winning the Best Actor Award for Paatal Lok in 2020.

Jaideep Ahlawat on his first Filmfare OTT Award win

Like Sanya, Jaideep also comes from a small town, and he reminisced about how it felt to win the trophy after watching it on TV. He stated, "When the Filmfare Awards used to come on TV, it used to be a huge thing. I was just thinking about those times, and I'm sitting here; it's such a privileged thing to be here. And I will go down in history as the first best actor of the OTT Awards. I was so lucky just thinking about [the past] and this is the sixth edition. I have three Filmfares in five editions that I'm so lucky that I am surrounded by so many talented people and sharing this world of filmmaking with so many amazing people. Thank you for appreciating great work."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zoom TV (@zoomtv)

How Paatal Lok changed his career

The Jaane Jaan actor also recalled how when he began working, he was looking for some recognition, which was a little delayed in coming. Jaideep said, "I started out my career with the legendary Priyadarshan, Anurag [Kashyap] sir, and after that Kamal Haasan, Vipul Shah... till Raazi, I was working with amazing workers and writing, but the [recognition] was happening, not happening."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zoom TV (@zoomtv)

He added, "But I think a big change came after Raazi. Paatal Lok gave me a fast level of acceptance. I remember it quite well. I have such vivid memories of the series. I realised in 30 seconds that if Paatal Lok is delivered exactly as it is written, then something good will happen in my career. After a second, I had another thought: 'Jaideep if you are not able to deliver this, then [creator] Sudeep Sharma will need another 10 years to trust someone again, to give someone a nine- or ten-episode series without audition.' It came with chills. On the first day of shoot, I openly told everyone that if we achieve what Sudeep Sharma has written on the paper, all of us are going to receive a lot of love. And that's what happened." This year, Jaideep was seen in the Netflix film Jewel Thief with Saif Ali Khan and the Amazon Prime Video series Paatal Lok and The Family Man. In the second season of Paatal Lok, he reprised his award-winning role of Haathiram Chaudhary.