vishal kotian who is known for playing different roles on television over the years famously played birbal in the show akbar birbal as an actor vishal says that he likes to explore new things and learn i was a model earlier never an actor i have been paid to learn acting he laughstalking about how he landed the role of birbal vishal reveals when i got the role of birbal i was shocked and it was quite funny the film jodha akbar had just released and i had hrithik roshans character of akbar in mind so when they approached me for the show i assumed it was for the role of emperor akbar but when i reached there i was handed the script of birbal i was shocked and asked them if it was a mistake but they said no you are going to play the role of birbal i never thought that i could be birbal because i am from mumbai and we talk in a certain casual manner which needed to be changed for a role like this it was a complete transformation for me i thought it was a challenge for me to play something like this however things went wellsometimes people would tell me that i seem like the reincarnation of birbal so that feels good he signs off 0721i was shocked when they gave me the script for birbals character because i thought i was called for akbar