Bollywood which is famous for nepotism and works as a close-knit family, making it big for an outsider is not an easy journey but Rajkumar Rao proved that with dedication, talent, and hard work, one can make it big irrespective of what the field is. Rajkumar Rao belongs to Gurgaon, Haryana, and from his early days, only he knows that he wants to be an actor. His birthday is coming on 31 August and we wish him the best of luck for all his future movies. He recently got married to his long-term girlfriend Patralekha who is also an actress on 15 November 2021.
After finishing his graduation from Delhi university, he joined FTII and graduated from it in 2008. He shifted his base to Mumbai, and like all struggling actors, most of his time was spent giving auditions or meeting producers and directors. It was director Dibaker Banerjee who noticed his talent and gave him a part in his anthology movie Love,Sex and Dhokha where everyone appreciated Rao’s acting. His next movie was Ragini MMS which did decent business at the box office. It was the movie Shahid which can be termed as one of the first milestones of his career. Based on true events, Rajkumar Rao played the role of lawyer and human right activist Shahid Ansari and he won a National Award as Best Actor for his brilliant performance in the movie. The movie also featured Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Prabhleen Sandhu, and Baljinder Kaurin in supporting roles. He played a small but significant part in movies like Talaash starring Aamir Khan and Anurag Kashyap’s cult classic movie Gangs of Wasseypur II.
After working in a few more movies like Bejoy Nambiar’s Shaitaan and Bedabrata Pain’s historical drama Chittagong, his next breakthrough movie was Kai Po Che directed by Abhishek Kapoor where he acted along with Sushant Singh Rajput and AMIT Sadh. Based on the book Three Mistakes of My Life, Kai Po Che was a commercial success and it got him into the limelight and he was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film.
He worked with Hansal Mehta in two more movies Aligarh, Citylights, and Omerta, both of which were highly praised by the critics but did underwhelming business at the box office. He then featured in some movies like Dolly ki Doli with Sonam Kapoor and Mohit Suri’s Humari Adhoori Kahani with Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan. Rajkumar Rao collaborated with Vikramaditya Motwane for his directorial venture, the survival drama Trapped (2016). It tells the story of a man trapped in his apartment without food, water, and electricity for days. Rao found the role of Shaurya to be one of his most challenging to date. He had to lose weight and to maintain it remained on a carrot and coffee diet throughout the course of filming.
In 2017, he starred in the superhit horror comedy movie Stree with Shraddha Kapoor which was a big hit at the box office. He also acted in the romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi, directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and co-starring Kriti Sanon and Ayushmann Khurrana which did good business at the box office. He also featured in a web series based on the life of Freedom Fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose titled Bose: Dead or Alive where he played the titular role of S.C Bose. Some of his other well-known movies are Queen, Shaadi Main Zaroor Aana, Newton, Ludo, and the recently released Badhai Do where he played a gay for the first time. As his birthday is coming soon on 31st August, we hope that he will keep entertaining us with his performances while wishing him good luck in his professional and personal life.
