An alumnus of the National School of Drama, Rajpal Yadav is an actor and comedian whose Bollywood career spans over two decades. He debuted in Hindi cinema in the late 1990s, and first rose to prominence when he essayed the role of the main antagonist in the thriller movie Jungle (2000). His performance in the film earned Yadav a Screen Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role that year. Subsequently, the actor was seen in comedic roles in a slew of hit movies like Hungama (2003), Waqt: The Race Against Time (2005), Garam Masala (2005), Phir Hera Pheri (2006) and Dhol (2007). Of these, his performance in Waqt (2005) also earned Yadav his maiden Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor in a Comic Role.
Over the years, the actor has essayed characters of various shades in around 150 feature films, which includes appearances in Marathi, English, Telugu, Kannada, Avadhi and Bengali language movies. In 2012, Yadav made his directorial debut with the musical political satire film Ata Pata Laapata. Other significant acting credits in recent times include Judwaa 2 (2017), Shrestha Bangali (2017) and the adventure comedy Total Dhamaal (2019).