Bilal Ashraf is a Pakistani film actor and visual effects director. Born in Karachi, his parents are Punjabis. Ashraf received his early education from St. Michaels Convent School in Karachi. He studied visual effects direction at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, United States. He did a double major in finance and arts. Later he went to Escape Studios in London to learn animation. He claims to have ten years of experience behind the camera.

He initially worked as a hedge consultant in New York but he later quit his job and moved to London in order to study animation and visual effects on the insistence of his late sister, Sadia Ashraf, who wanted to improve Pakistan's cinema and with whom he created Radical Films. She is the reason he decided to become an actor.[5] After studying visual effects from the Franklin Marshall College, he started his career as a visual effects director and then pursued his career in acting after making a brief appearance in the 2014 acclaimed thriller O21. Ashraf then starred as an army officer in another acclaimed war drama, Yalgaar in 2017.