Celebrity trainer turned actor Mustafa Ahmed got a lot of love for his role in ‘Dhurandhar 2’. He played Rizwan, Hamza’s trusted aide in the film. But his journey to the spotlight has been anything but easy. Years ago, he was earning just Rs 10,000 a month as a gym trainer in Delhi’s Janakpuri. Nearly 15 years later, he would go on to train none other than Hrithik Roshan.Mustafa’s path was far from conventional. He wasn’t someone people expected to “make it big.” Much like the protagonist in Taare Zameen Par, he struggled with dyslexia and eventually dropped out of formal education.Speaking on the Jag Of All Trades podcast, Mustafa Ahmed recalled, “I was not a bright kid. I was dyslexic and come from an Afghani background. But I was always physical—I was good at sports, picked up dancing naturally. Anything that involved using my body, I was good at it.”At just 21, he was already earning Rs 1 lakh a month as the youngest team leader at a call centre in 2001—a dream job for many. But a seemingly small moment ended up changing his life completely. While working out at a gym in Janakpuri, he noticed a woman in her 40s being ignored by a trainer. He stepped in to help her, unaware of how pivotal that moment would become.On the Alpha Coach podcast, he shared, “A couple of months later, she handed me an envelope and asked me to read it at home. It scared me. But in that letter, she wrote that working out had brought the spark back into her marriage. She told me this was my life calling—and not following it would be criminal.”That message stayed with him. Soon after, Mustafa made the bold decision to quit his high-paying job. “My manager called me crazy,” he said. His mother, too, stopped speaking to him after he left a stable career, especially given that he had already stepped away from academics.Starting from scratch, he took up a job at a West Delhi gym for Rs 10,000 a month, waking up at 4 am daily to open the shutters. Around the same time, a visit to Fitness First in Connaught Place became another turning point. Despite lacking formal qualifications, his honesty and passion earned him a job.“They offered me Rs 18,000 plus Rs 600 per session out of which, they kept Rs 300 and gave me the other Rs 300. I couldn’t believe people would pay me that for an hour. That’s when I felt—sky is the limit,” he said.What followed was sheer grit and consistency. Within three months, Mustafa became the No. 1 trainer for Fitness First in Asia. He was conducting up to 14 sessions a day, six days a week—clocking nearly 400 hours a month and earning over Rs 1.4 lakh. By 2009, he had firmly established himself.As his career progressed, so did his vision. Seeing international trainers dominate the Indian fitness space, Mustafa questioned why Indian trainers weren’t given the same recognition. “I believed I was at par with them. So why not me?” he said.Before the release of Dhurandhar, Mustafa had penned an emotional note for Aditya Dhar in 2025: “‘Main hoon na. Tu kar.’ He would say this whenever I doubted myself. ‘Tu theek hai na’ when I wasn’t okay. ‘Tu khush hai na’ when I got emotional.” Reflecting on his acting debut, he added, “Aditya Dhar, you took me on a journey I never imagined. You saw in me what I didn’t know existed. But most importantly, you gave me your friendship and love—and for that, you have my loyalty for life.”
