Osman Khalid Butt

Butt was born on 9 February 1986 in Islamabad, Federal territory, Pakistan, to a Kashmiri father and French mother.[1] His father, Khalid Said Butt, is a famous actor, director and screenwriter in Pakistan.[2] According to him when he was 5 years old, his elder sister asked him to look at the stars in the sky and craft stories. His brother, Omar Khalid Butt, is a news anchor and writer, and his sister, Michelle Tania Butt, is the chief executive of Kuch Khaas.[3] The model Rubya Chaudhry is his first cousin.[4]

Butt started his acting career in 2005, acting in theatre plays in his hometown Islamabad. He made his film debut in the 2007 film Zibahkhana which is Pakistan's first zombie horror film. In 2007 he also wrote, acted, choreographed for, and directed his first theatre production under the banner of ‘The Living Picture Productions’ the company he set up around the same time. He went onto write direct and act in many successful plays in his home town. In 2010 he started making videos on YouTube as "The living picture guy" then acted in the film Slackistan which was banned after the film was refused a pass by the censor board. In 2012 he acted in the romantic drama series Aik Nayee Cinderella.[5] The same year he starred as Aunn in Aunn Zara.[6] He was also featured in a drama Munkir as Zain. In 2015, he played the role of Wali Suhaib Khan in Diyar-e-Dil.[5] In 2016, he played the role of Harib in Sanam.

Butt is the co-founder, creative lead and poetry editor of the Desi Writers Lounge,[7] an online, 24/7, 365 days a year writers' workshop and community, that aims to showcase new voices in South Asian writing through their biannual publication, 'Papercuts'.[8] He has written the screen play for the 2013 acclaimed supernatural horror film Siyaah and the 2016 commercially successful romantic comedy film Janaan.[9][10] He also worked as a script-writer for the Lux Style Awards in 2017. He then featured as Balu in his debut film as an actor, the comedy Balu Mahi along with Ainy Jaffri. He was the director of choreography for Hareem Farooq-produced Parchi (2018) from the song "Billo Hai".[11][12]

• Osman Khalid Butt at IMDb