Actor Rajkummar Rao is back in action, and currently in Chandigarh shooting for his next with Kriti Sanon. However, considering the Coronavirus scare, there must have been a lot of thinking he had to do. The actor agrees, and says, “Of course, I was a little apprehensive. But the kind of preparation we have here, we lived in a bubble for the first seven days. Everybody is getting tested regularly, and there are a lot of safety precautions that the team is taking, which is amazing. The credit goes to them, they all are being very alert.”

Film industries across the world were impacted massively when the shutdown took place to curb the pandemic. Lately, many actors have been working, with standard operating procedures put in place by the government. The actor agrees that it’s important for the industry to get back on it’s feet again.

“I think work is important, and thanks to Akshay (Kumar) sir, starting with Bellbottom. He managed to finish a whole film, which is amazing! After a while things will go back to normal, people would want to go out and watch films, so we have to start making them. Of course, keeping safety in mind,” Rao adds.

The 36-year-old, apart from his shoot, also had two of his films, Chhalaang and Ludo, release back to back on different digital platforms, and he managed to garner good reviews for both. Rao says that he didn’t plan it this way. “Of course I didn’t want it this way. That’s how makers thought, it’s festive season, and we are a country of 1.3 billion people. They would have wanted to see films and great content. I am sure they wouldn’t have done this in theatres, because on OTT, you can watch as per your convenience,” he says.

Several times in the past, there’s been a buzz about how issues can crop up between actors when they are working together in a multi-starrer, and screen time is one of them. While Chhalaang was a solo lead, Ludo boasts of several actors with equally substantial parts.

Ask him whether he ever had to go through the same, and whether he prefers one type of project over the other, and Rao says, “I am an actor, I am comfortable with either. I have always done multi-starrers. I don’t mind it. If it’s a good story, you should be a part of it. Of course you keep doing your films where you are the lead, but then if there’s an exciting story or opportunities… I feel, for me, the greed to work with someone like Anurag Basu (director of Ludo), was immense.”