Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Actors ~upd~ Jun 2026

His entry scene, rising from the tracks of a railway platform with a cigarette dangling from his lips while the title track blared, became instant cinematic lore. Devgn portrayed Sultan with a strange sense of nobility—a Don who refuses to deal in drugs and sponsors the national cricket team. He imbued the character with a weary wisdom, making the audience root for the "villain" over the system.

For Devgn, this was a turning point. It solidified his transition from the "action hero" of the 90s to the "powerhouse performer" of the 2010s, a persona he would carry forward into franchises like Singham . once upon a time in mumbai actors

The first film focuses on the rise of smuggler and his eventual conflict with his ambitious protégé, Shoaib Khan . His entry scene, rising from the tracks of

In a film filled with smoke, blood, and deceit, Prachi Desai’s Mumtaz served as the breath of fresh air. Making her Bollywood debut after a successful television career, Desai had the unenviable task of being the "good girl" in a world of bad men. For Devgn, this was a turning point

The true success of Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai lay in the interplay between its leads. The relationship between Sultan and Shoaib was a warped father-son dynamic, a tale of two generations colliding.

The film’s backbone is the intense dynamic between its two male leads, representing two different eras of crime in Mumbai.

Devgn is known in the industry as an “iceberg actor”—90% of his performance is submerged beneath the surface. To prepare, he didn’t visit the Mumbai underworld or meet gangsters. Instead, he sat in silence. He studied the stillness of power. Watch closely: his Sultan never raises his voice. Even when he slaps a rival, his face remains calm. That terrifying calmness came from Devgn’s own understanding of restraint—a trait he inherited from his action-director father, Veeru Devgn.