 His breakthrough role came in 2009 with the starring role as Dev in Anurag Kashyap's "Dev.D", a modern-day adaptation of the Bengali classic novel "Devdas".Following the success of the film, Deol gained wider recognition.Deol mainly appeared in independent films early in his career, but that changed in 2011 when he starred in Zoya Akhtar's "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara", a road film that went to become one of the highest-grossing films in Bollywood.