Born to the action director Sham Kaushal, Kaushal pursued an engineering degree from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology. Aspiring to take up a career in film, he assisted Anurag Kashyap in the crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) and went on to play minor roles in two of Kashyap's productions. His first leading role was in the independent drama Masaan (2015), which earned him the IIFA and Screen Awards for Best Male Debut, following which he starred as an unhinged cop in Kashyap's psychological thriller Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016).