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Rajkummar communicates with Hansal through silences
Actor Rajkummar Rao and filmmaker Hansal Mehta seem to be among the most loved actor-director pair in Bollywood. Having collaborated for films such as Shahid (2013), City Lights (2014), Aligarh (2015) and now Omerta, the two share a great equation and comfort.
Describing his camaraderie with the filmmaker, Rao says, “We’ve developed a different kind of understanding and our bond is getting stronger, day by day.”
The National Awardwinning actor, elaborates, “Our relationship is special and it started growing from our first film. We don’t really need too many words to communicate with each other on the set. It’s more like both of us are communicating through silences. I know, after saying a ‘cut’ if at all he wants a retake or not. And I think more than professional, it’s a personal connection now. He is family to me. He is my family in Mumbai, the city, I now call home and have no one else whom I can really go to and speak my heart out. I can share my life with him, I look up to him.” Rao is reportedly teaming up with Mehta for the fifth time on a film tentatively titled Swagat Hain.
Ask Rao about that one thing that he does not like about Mehta or wants to change and the actor says, “He [Hansal] loves eating sweets and that’s something we are all telling him that it’s not good for his health and he should control. Though he isn’t diabetic, after a certain point everyone needs to follow certain restrictions. That’s the only thing about him that I want to change.”
And what does the actor admire the most in the filmmaker? “His love for the art — he’s a maverick, one of the best filmmakers we have in the country right now. He is very brave. He doesn’t like compromising when it comes to work and believes in speaking his heart out,” says Rao, whose list of upcoming films include Stree, Mental Hai Kya, Fanne Khan and Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga.