Rajkummar Rao
Name: Rajkummar Rao
Nickname: Raj
Birthday: 31st August 1984
Known For: Rajkummar Rao is known for paying a lot of attention to every character he plays. He likes to immerse in the role as much as possible. As per one report, while he was playing the role of terrorist Omar Saeed Sheikh in the film ‘Omerta’, he dove into the character so much so that when he saw the news of the terrorist attack in Paris on TV, ‘Well done’ came out of his mouth. He immediately restrained himself and said that it was very unfortunate.
Height: 5’7″
Weight: 70 kgs
Debut Film: Love, Sex Aur Dhoka
Marital Status: Married
Spouse: Patralekha
Children: None
Relationships: Patralekha
Awards: 2 Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics), Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, National Film Award for Best Actor, Star Screen Award for Best Actor (Male), Star Screen Award for Best Actor (Critics), Zee Cine Award for Best Supporting Actor
Zodiac: Virgo
Rajkummar Rao Biography
Rajkummar Rao, born Raj Kumar Yadav, has become one of the most known actors in Bollywood. His father, Satya Prakash Yadav, was a government employee and his mother, Kamlesh Yadav, was a homemaker. Rao said that he decided to become an actor after seeing Manoj Bajpayee and being “highly influenced” by his performance.
In 2008, he enrolled in a two-year acting course at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, and moved to Mumbai to pursue a film career. After graduating from the FTII in 2008, Rajkummar Rao spent the next year visiting studios and meeting casting directors.
He made a small, uncredited appearance as a newsreader in Ram Gopal Varma’s 2010 political thriller Rann. After reading a newspaper advertisement that mentioned Dibakar Banerjee was looking for newcomers for his found-footage anthology film Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), he auditioned for the film and was selected. The film consists of three stories; Rao appears in the second story opposite Neha Chauhan. To fit the part, he had to lose 6 kilograms (13 lb) in a month. The film and Rao’s performance met with critical acclaim. It also turned out to be a profitable box-office venture.
After the success of his debut film, producer Ekta Kapoor offered Rao the lead role in the found footage horror film Ragini MMS (2011). He was reluctant initially to accept it, as it seemed similar to his previous work, but he took up the offer at casting director Atul Mongia’s insistence.
Despite an unfavourable critical response, the film was a box-office success. His next release was Bejoy Nambiar’s crime thriller Shaitan in 2011. The actor was praised for his performance. Director Anurag Kashyap had liked Rao’s performance in Love Sex Aur Dhokha and cast him in Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 in 2012. The film was a critical and financial success.
His subsequent role was that of independence activist Lokenath Bal in Bedabrata Pain’s historical drama Chittagong (2012), which was based on the Chittagong armoury raid. His final release of the year was Reema Kagti’s suspense thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within, where he played a cop. The film, starring Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shernaz Patel, had worldwide earnings of over ?1.74 billion (US$24 million) to emerge as the year’s eighth highest-grossing Hindi film.
Abhishek Kapoor’s social drama film Kai Po Che! (2013) was Rajkummar Rao’s next venture. Co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Amit Sadh, the film is based on Chetan Bhagat’s 2008 novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life. The film received critical acclaim, with praise for the lead performances. Rao was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film.
In 2013, Rajkummar Rao appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama Shahid, where he plays the title role of late lawyer Shahid Azmi. To prepare for the role, Rao met Azmi’s family and spent time with them to understand the man and his personality. He also studied the Quran and attended courtrooms to understand how lawyers behave.
Rao said he was “emotionally drained” as the character was challenging and complex. The film and his performance met with critical acclaim upon its release. The film was also a box-office success. Rajkummar Rao received the National Film Award for Best Actor at the 61st National Film Awards ceremony and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor at the 59th Filmfare Awards.
His other 2013 release was the comedy film Boyss Toh Boyss Ha Rao next played the supporting role in the comedy-drama Queen. The film had its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival and was released theatrically in 2014. It was a critical and commercial success, grossing ?970 million (US$14 million) worldwide.
The same year he acted in a short film titled Bombay Mirror directed by Shlok Sharma along with Vijay Maurya. He collaborated with Mehta on his drama film CityLights in 2014. Co-starring Patralekha Paul. To prepare for the role, Rao lived in the small town of Sadri in the Pali district of Rajasthan for a month, grew a moustache and became well-versed with the dialect. Critics praised the film and Rao’s performance. It proved to be a moderate financial success.
In 2015, Rajkumar Rao appeared in a supporting role in the romantic comedy Dolly Ki Doli, co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Pulkit Samrat and Varun Sharma. It met with mixed reviews and had only an average gross at the box office. Its followup was the Mohit Suri-directed romantic drama Hamari Adhuri Kahani in 2015.
He returned to work with Mehta in the biographical drama Aligarh. Aligarh met with critical acclaim upon its release, with particular praise for Bajpayee and Rao’s performances. Rao was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film.
Rajkummar Rao collaborated with Vikramaditya Motwane for his directorial venture, the survival drama Trapped, in 2016. Rao found the role of Shaurya to be one of his most challenging to date. He had to lose weight and maintain it remained on a carrot and coffee diet throughout filming. Despite being a vegan, Rao ate meat in some scenes for the first time in his life, as Motwane insisted on realism. Trapped premiere at the 2016 Mumbai Film Festival and was released theatrically on 17 March 2017 to positive reviews. Rao won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.
Rajkummar Rao’s first release in 2017 was the romantic comedy Behen Hogi Teri with Shruti Haasan; it met with an unfavourable critical response though critics praised Rao’s performance. He followed this with another romantic comedy titled Bareilly Ki Barfi, directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and co-starring Kriti Sanon and Ayushmann Khurrana.
The film and Rao’s performance met with highly positive reviews. Namrata Joshi wrote: It was a commercial success and Rao won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Amit V. Masurkar’s black comedy flick Newton was Rao’s next film. In it, he plays the role of an upright government clerk sent on election duty to a Naxal-controlled town. He asked the director if he could curl his hair and blink his eyes continuously to make the character distinct; Masurkar agreed. The film premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and was released in 2017.
Newton met with critical acclaim as did Rao’s performance. The role earned him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor and a nomination for Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. He also made a cameo appearance in Dinesh Vijan’s Raabta (2017). He had to apply prosthetic’s for five to six hours every day to look like a 324-year-old man.
His final theatrical release of the year was Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana with Kriti Kharbanda,
which met with mixed critical responses. He also made his digital debut with ALTBalaji’s historical biographical web mini-series Bose: Dead/Alive. Based on the 2012 book India’s Biggest Cover-up by Anuj Dhar, he portrays nationalist leader Subhash Chandra Bose. For the role, Rao gained 13 kilograms (29 lb) and went half bald. The actor received mixed reviews for this performance.
Rajkummar Rao reunited with Mehta for the biographical crime film Omerta, where he portrays the role of terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. The film had its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in India in 2018. The film and Rao’s performance met with critical acclaim.
He starred next in the musical comedy Fanney Khan in 2018 with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Anil Kapoor. A remake of the 2000 Belgian film Everybody’s Famous!, the film was a critical and commercial failure. Stree, the Amar Kaushik-directed horror-comedy was his next release that year. Based on the Bangalore urban legend known as Nale Ba, the film also starred Shraddha Kapoor.
The film, and Rao’s performance, met with positive critical feedback. It also earned him a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actor.[80] Stree was a major financial success. In the same year, Rao appeared briefly in Tabrez Noorani’s Love Sonia which was about sex trafficking.
His final release of 2018 was 5 Weddings. Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, a film about a closeted lesbian, was Rao’s first film of 2019. Co-starring Sonam K Ahuja, Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla, critics received the film warmly for its positive representation of homosexuality. However, it failed to do well commercially.
He appeared next with Kangana Ranaut in the black comedy Judgementall Hai Kya. His performance earned him another Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor nomination. His final acting venture was Mikhil Musale’s comedy flick Made in China. The film, based on the namesake novel by Parinda Joshi, met with mixed critical responses. The film fared moderately well at the box office.
Rao’s first release of 2020 was Ramesh Sippy’s romantic comedy Shimla Mirchi, which had been delayed for several years. It met with negative reviews from critics and was a box office disaster. His next acting venture, the Anurag Basu-directed anthology film Ludo also featuring an ensemble cast of Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Sanya Malhotra, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Pankaj Tripathi, was directly streamed digitally on Netflix due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The film also earned him a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actor. The same year, Rajkummar Rao also reunited with Mehta for the sports comedy Chhalaang to play a Haryanvi physical instructor. In which he was paired opposite Nushrat Bharucha. It was premiered on Amazon Prime Video.
In 2021, Rao made his Hollywood debut with Ramin Bahrani’s The White Tiger, which was based on the eponymous novel by Aravind Adiga. Co-starring Priyanka Chopra and Adarsh Gourav, the film started streaming on Netflix on 22 January and met with positive critical reception. His subsequent release was the horror-comedy Roohi co-starring Janhvi Kapoor. The film met with mixed critical feedback but proved to be a box-office success.
Rao reunited with Kriti Sanon in the comedy-drama film Hum Do Hamare Do, which was released directly on Disney+ Hotstar on 29 October 2021.
Controversy: Once Rajkummar Rao was caught in a controversy after he left leaves ‘5 Weddings’ movie in between. Then Namrata Singh Gujral director of the film expressed her anger on social media and said “Either he didn’t want it to release in India or do the Hindi dub or thought it was just a small film, but I have never seen an actor behave like he did. I don’t think I can forgive him for that.”
Latest News: Recently, Rajkummar Rao got married to Patralekhaa. The couple dated each other for over a decade. They tied the knot in Chandigarh on Monday, and Rajkummar said that he got married to his everything.
Latest Movies: Hum Do Hamare Do
Latest Series: Bose: Dead/Alive
Upcoming Movies: Badhaai Do