The 39-year-old actor entered Bollywood in 1999 with a blink and miss role in Aamir Khan starrer 'Sarfarosh'. However, his first breakthrough role came in 2004 with Anurag Kashyap's 'Black Friday', the film on Mumbai's 1993 bombings, where he played a terrorist.
After 14 years of struggle, his role as the hot-headed Intelligence Bureau officer Khan in 'Kahaani' and drug-addled Faizal Khan in Kashyap's two part revenge drama 'Gangs of Wasseypur', finally changed things for him.
The director loved his performance in films like 'Patang', 'Peepli Live' and many others where he has left a mark.
"I wanted to work with him in 'Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye'. I just couldn't find him. I wanted Nawaz to act as Abhay's sidekick in the film, but that was ultimately played by Manu Rishi. He made it as his role and did a good job," he said.
It is for the first time that four top directors from Bollywood - Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap - have come together for a venture comprising four short films.
Dibakar's short film is based on Satyajit Ray's short story, which is an emotional tale of a father-son relationship.