A decade of Rajkummar Rao

“We are also reviewing the situation like everyone else at the moment.” —VARUN DHAWAN

The incomparable Rajkummar Rao has clocked 10 years in the Indian film industry as of Thursday. The actor debuted with Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha on March 19, 2010. Unlike newbies then who picked conventional roles, the actor — who was initially called Rajkumar Yadav — changed his surname, added an ‘m’ to his first name, and then took the offbeat path and lent his acting mettle to films that furthered the cause of cinema in the initial years of his career. In hindsight, the gamble paid off when some celebrated filmmakers signed him on.

In 2013, his performance in Abhishek Kapoor’s Kai Po Che! Won him an award for Best Supporting Actor followed by a National Film Award for the Best Actor for Hansal Mehta’s Shahid. Films like Queen, City Lights, and Aligarh followed. Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped helped him trap a few more awards, after which commercial cinema beckoned with the romcom Bareilly Ki Barfi and the popular awards followed. After Amit V. Masurkar’s Newton became India’s official entry to Oscars, Rajkummar took home most of the awards of the year. Mehta’s Omerta made it a double whammy for him.

Then the 100-crore bonanza came up with the film Stree with Shraddha Kapoor.

“I am glad that in the course of my decade-long journey, I had the honour of working with some of the best minds in the Hindi film industry. It had always been my endeavour to be a part of inspiring cinema. I’m very happy that for ten years, filmmakers trusted me with their vision and placed their bets on my humble talents. I cannot thank them and the viewers enough,” says Rao as he looks forth to films like Anurag Basu’s Ludo, Roohi Afzana with Janhvi Kapoor, the Netflix adaptation of The White Tiger with Priyanka Chopra, Hansal Mehta’s Chhalaang, the sequel to Badhaai Ho Badhaai Do and the Chupke Chupke remake.

— Sanskriti Media