OTTplay Awards 2025: Anupam Kher wins Best Actor (Male) Critics for Vijay 69 and The Signature

Anupam Kher is undoubtedly one of the most versatile veteran actors in Bollywood currently. Whether it's a gripping crime thriller, or family drama, or something political and historical, the 70-year-old actor never fails to stun the audience, even the youngsters. Hence, the third edition of OTTplay Awards honoured him with Best Actor (Male) Critics Award this year in 2025.

Kher bagged the prestigious accolade for Netflix's Vijay 69, and ZEE5's The Signature drama films, which were released last year in 2024. While the Akshay Roy-directorial follows the story of a feisty widower with a big dream, who, at the age of 69, is determined to complete a challenging triathlon, proving that age is just a number, the Gajendra Ahire-directorial tells the story of an elderly man, named Arvind, whose world turns upside down when his wife falls into coma. As she fights for her life, Arvind must find the strength to rebuild their life together.

Anupam Kher, who was presented the award by Tips Industries CEO Kumar Taurani and OTTplay CEO Avinash Mudaliar at the show that was hosted by Aparshakti Khurana and Kubra Sait, said, "It's feels wonderful to get awards. Even at this age and after all these years of experiences, I feel like I'm competing with myself. Just like Vijay from Vijay 69 film, I will still be working even at the age of 99."

Back in October 2024, filmmaker Gajendra Ahire told OTTplay in an exclusive interview that it was an excellent experience for him to work with Anupam Kher. He further shared that when he narrated the story to the actor, Kher listened to it very carefully, and he got so involved in the storyline that he eventually became the co-producer of The Signature film.

OTTplay Awards 2025 also saw the who's who of Indian's OTT space turn up, celebrating the theme - 'One Nation, One Award'. Kajol, Kani Kasruti, Priyamani, Rakesh Roshan, Nimisha Sanjayan, Manoj Bajpayee, and more were also honoured at the shimmering award event, which has held from film industries including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada.

OTTplay Awards 2025 is co-presented by Real Juice and Kuhl and powered by Stock Gro. The marquee event, held in partnership with HT City, has Flipkart Spoyl as the exclusive style partner, D Pauls as the travel partner, Amante as the premium lingerie partner, Propshop as the real estate partner, Aussie Lamb and Krishinet Fiber as the special partners, UDigital as the ISP and iPTV partner and Hyperlink as the event partner.