The arrival of Lust Stories 3 on September 18 served as a stark reminder of why this anthology series remains a cornerstone of modern Indian digital cinema. By stripping away the performative layers of mainstream Bollywood and daring to probe the uncomfortable, often messy intersections of desire and domesticity, the franchise has once again captured the zeitgeist. Yet, this time around, the conversation isn’t just about the daring themes—it’s about the staggering, chameleon-like evolution of its lead, Ali Fazal.
While the ensemble cast delivers in spades, the standout segment—directed by the master of emotional topography, Shakun Batra—has become the talk of the town. Watching Fazal pivot from the scorched-earth grit of Guddu Bhaiya in the recently released Mirzapur: The Movie to the fragile, neurotic, and deeply human Varun in Lust Stories 3 is nothing short of a masterclass in range. The internet, in its infinite wisdom and penchant for hyperbole, has officially crowned him the industry’s newest “pookie,” a term of endearment that underscores how much audiences are leaning into his newfound vulnerability.
What Radhikka Madan says about Ali Fazal
Behind every great performance is a creative synergy that the audience only glimpses in the finished product. Radhikka Madan, who holds her own with a ferocious, “patakha” energy in Batra’s segment, recently sat down with NDTV to pull back the curtain on what it’s actually like to inhabit a scene with Fazal.
“I think Ali is a phenomenal actor. He’s a very versatile actor, super talented,” Madan shared, recalling the initial anticipation she felt upon learning who her scene partner would be. “I didn’t know who the guy was when I was cast, and when I got to know, I was very excited. You always want to work with great actors.”
What stood out to Madan most wasn’t just his technical prowess, but his collaborative spirit. In an industry where egos often clash, Fazal’s willingness to throw out the script and find something deeper in the moment became a highlight of the shoot. “He’s very open. He loves to improvise. I love to improvise. He has very nice, bizarre ideas that he comes up with,” she added. “It’s very, very creatively satisfying to work with him.” This “bizarre” energy is precisely what injects the segment with its unique, off-kilter rhythm, preventing it from falling into the tropes of a standard romantic drama.
Ali Fazal’s calmer Guddu in ‘Mirzapur: The Movie’
To understand why fans are currently losing their minds over his performance in Lust Stories 3, one must look at the gargantuan task he just completed with the Mirzapur cinematic universe. For years, Ali Fazal has been synonymous with the rage-fueled, hair-trigger violence of Guddu Bhaiya. However, in Mirzapur: The Movie, we see a man who has traded his brute force for a sharper, more surgical intellect.
This “calmer” Guddu is a dangerous evolution. He is a strategist now, someone who processes pain not by lashing out, but by calculating his next move with chilling detachment. It’s a performance defined by restraint. Seeing him carry the weight of that character—a man who is fundamentally unloved and hollowed out by loss—and then seeing him dissolve into the soft, flawed skin of Varun in Lust Stories, highlights a tactical brilliance in his career choices. He is no longer just a lead actor; he is a sculptor of personas.
Ali Fazal as the flawed and vulnerable Varun
If the cinematic landscape is often obsessed with the “macho” lead, Lust Stories 3 is a delicious subversion of that archetype. In Shakun Batra’s chapter, Fazal sheds the armor of his past roles to play a man who is worn out, neurotic, and caught in the suffocating loop of a court-ordered cooling-off period.
Madan provides the perfect context for why this character works so well, noting that the physical contrast between the two actors was a deliberate choice by Batra. “He wanted Varun to be a mama’s boy. When you look at such a huge guy, you’re like, ‘Oh, he’s a mama’s boy,’ and he’s so soft and so vulnerable,” Madan explained. “The humor also comes from there. And Sailee, despite being physically smaller, is such a patakha. It is quite comical when you just look at them and how they behave. So credit to Shakun for just playing on that, playing on the physicality and the emotionality of both of these characters.”
By embracing the absurdity of a large man playing a soft-hearted, slightly pathetic figure, Fazal avoids the pitfalls of ego. He isn’t trying to look “cool.” He is trying to look real.
Film sticks to the franchise’s familiar theme
Lust Stories 3 exists in a landscape that it helped create. When the first anthology dropped, the frank, unfiltered discussion of female pleasure and the complexities of modern intimacy was revolutionary. Today, the conversation has matured, and the film leans into that expectation.
While some might argue that the subject matter—women’s desire taking center stage—feels less like a “revelation” now than it did half a decade ago, there is a refreshing consistency to it. It remains one of the few platforms where the internal landscape of a woman—her wants, her boredom, her dissatisfaction, and her agency—isn’t treated as a plot device but as the entire point of the narrative.
The franchise has hit its stride, proving that we don’t always need high-octane spectacle to stay engaged. Sometimes, all we need is a tightly written script, a director who knows how to peel back the layers of human psychology, and two performers like Ali Fazal and Radhikka Madan who are brave enough to show us exactly how messy, bizarre, and beautiful love—or the lack thereof—can truly be. As the internet continues to gush over Fazal’s transformation, one thing is clear: we aren’t just watching a performance; we’re witnessing an actor truly coming into his own.
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