Actor Rajkummar Rao on riding the ‘content is king’ wave that catapulted him from bit-sized roles to a lead part in one of the year’s most loved films
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 21, 2018)

This has been a year where the Badshahs and Shehenshahs of the Hindi film industry have toppled at the box office. But it is also one where a horror comedy about a small-town tailor who falls for a witch, happens to be the surprise hit of the year. When we meet the film’s 34-year-old lead, Rajkummar Rao, at an Andheri studio, he’s humbled to learn that leading actresses of the day are queuing up to work with him. “The industry is driven by content today and people are respecting the writing part of the process which is the way forward for films to be,” says the actor who will be seen in films such as Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, Mental Hai Kya, Made In China and Turram Khan in the following year. Dressed in deliberate casuals, complete with distressed denim and heavy-set glasses, Rao has a hurried manner of someone with a nervous tick. But given the space that he has carved for himself, having proved his mettle in independent films (Trapped, Newton) and commercial entertainers (Bareilly Ki Barfi, Stree) alike, it’s safe to toss the industry cliché and say that he has ‘arrived’.

Rao credits the welcome turn in favour of content-driven cinema for a spike in demand for performance-oriented actors, including him. In fact, while he refuses to name names, there are filmmakers who have rejected him in the past and are now approaching him with new offers. “I have nothing against anybody and I understand that it is a business model. You have to see who you cast at what point based on who can get you what in return.” And while he accepts that the equity attached to him has got a shot in the arm, he insists that little else has changed. “If somebody pays me more money, it’s not like my process changes. I still approach my characters the way I did in LSD,” he says, referring to his debut in Dibakar Banerjee’s experimental troika Love Sex Aur Dhokha. And how exactly does he slip into the skin of his on-screen avatars? “Once you understand where a character comes from, they talk to you,” says Rao, offering an example to illustrate, “So, in Stree, I knew this is a guy who is flamboyant and thinks he is very cool. Then, I just allow them to respond to the circumstances they find themselves in.”

Rao describes the last two years with a monosyllabic response: “phenomenal”. But 2018 began on a shaky note for the actor who played a vicious terrorist mastermind in Hansal Mehta’s Omerta and a bumbling sidekick in the Atul Manjrekar’s Fanney Khan — both failed to impress audiences. But he isn’t too affected by these setbacks. “We all want our films to do well but we never expected Omerta to make (Rs) 100 crore. I was only driven by the greed to play a dark, negative character in a Hansal Mehta movie,” says the actor who has collaborated with the filmmaker in acclaimed films such as Aligarh, CityLights and Shahid and will feature in his next, Turram Khan opposite Nushrat Bharucha. He defends Fanney Khan, saying that it offered a chance to work with the inimitable Anil Kapoor. “He’s a factory of energy and a student of film even today,” he describes the veteran actor. Rao was impressed by Kapoor’s ability to stand-in for his cues while filming Fanney Khan. “He is Anil Kapoor and has a body of work to fall back on but he doesn’t take it easy. He’s like a curious child who wants to learn something new every day and that’s inspiring,” says the actor who lists being more emotional than he’d like to be as one of his weaknesses.

Growing up in a middle-class joint family in Gurgaon, Rao’s earliest association with films was being part of his family’s weekly ritual of collecting in front of the TV set to watch a Hindi film or two on VHS. “It introduced me to a surreal world and I wanted to be a part of it.” He didn’t need to tell us that a healthy dosage of Shah Rukh Khan hits put the “seed of acting” in him. His onscreen tribute to SRK in the scene in Stree where his character mimics the actor in a drunken spur was enough. But it was a dream that took a while to realise. Following theatre gigs in Delhi, graduating from FTII in Pune, Rao bagged his debut in Love Sex Aur Dhoka and a year-and-a-half later, his next important role, Ragini MMS gave him some ground. But only bite-sized parts in films such as Shaitan, Talaash and Gangs Of Wasseypur (GOW) followed. “As an actor, one is always greedy and wants to stay on the screen for as long as possible. But there was always something for me to do in those small parts too.” Moving to Mumbai at first, he remembers, gave him “a sense of freedom and an opportunity to build a life” and even encounters like his association with Anurag Kashyap, his director in GOW, got him a referral for his first crucial lead in Hansal Mehta’s Shahid — a film he credits as his career’s turning point. “It was a biopic made with a lot of passion, but it didn’t get the kind of reception it should have,” he regrets, adding, “In hindsight, post Bareilly, Stree and Newton, people know me now and I get a lot of love on social media as well, so if the film would release today, it would surely do much better.”

Rao’s next, opposite Sonam Kapoor, is another love story set in a small town, his fourth after Behen Hogi Teri, Bareilly Ki Barfi and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana. And he says he picked the film “just for the story” and Mental Hai Kya because it belonged in a “quirky, edgy space” and because “it’s always fun working with Kangana” [Ranaut]. But the top priority for picking the film remains, whether the story excites him. “Even if it’s an action film, it would have to be the story that would set one apart from the other. It can’t just be about one guy beating up 20 others in every second scene,” he says with a smile.

Few know that Rao’s trained in martial arts but is yet to be seen in an action film. “I like giving a spin to my characters. So, I play a Gujarati in Made In China and while I’ve played one before (in Kai Po Che!), in this one, you can smell Gujarat,” says the actor who isn’t sure if one can bag roles based on networking alone today. “I have never really tried it. But if I have to go and talk to somebody, I will end up talking to them about everything, instead of just asking them about what they are making next.”


The actor as Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in Omerta; A still from Stree