Gajraj’s career takes off

Gajraj Rao may have debuted in 1994 with Director Shekhar Kapoor’s film Bandit Queen, but it took a long journey to establish himself as an exuberant performer. He is now getting offers from all the Bollywood bigwigs. His next flick, Lootcase by Rajesh Krishnan, is to release on Disney Hotstar on 31st July.

Badhaai Ho! won Gajraj an award. For him, it was a dream he hadn’t expected to be fulfilled. “I never thought that I would get even an invitation to any award function and share a stage with stars,” he tells us.

In Lootcase, he plays a politician and says, “He is not a black-and-white leader. It is a different kind of a role, a very interesting role. This quirky comedy will keep the audience in a splits.”

His priority now is to complete his next film, Maidaan, an Ajay Devgn-starrer which is only half done. In the film, set in the 50s and 60s, he plays a newspaper editor and is all praise for Ajay Devgn. “He gave a precise, technical performance throughout. I was in awe of him. In the first two takes I was just admiring him. I realised that he was a star because of his dedication and hard work. After the shot, we chatted. I could see that he acknowledged my performance. This was very satisfactory,” he shares.

Gajraj expects shooting for Maidaan to resume in November or December, as per the information received from Boney Kapoor’s office. The film is scheduled to be released in August next year.

Stressing that he still has a long way to go in his career, Gajraj, who counts the fact that audiences connect easily with him as a strength, reveals that after this, he will be doing a film by Imtiaz Ali.