In a career spanning eight years, Rajkummar Rao has made a steady rise to the top, becoming one of the most distinctive and trusted actors of Hindi cinema. His latest movie, Stree has also received positive reviews.<\/p>\n
Rao, who turned 34 on Friday, believes Shahid, Trapped, Newton and Bareilly Ki Barfi are the four films that impacted his career the most.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe characters in these films were real in a way. Though Shahid was the only true story, what happened in \u2018Trapped\u2019 can happen to anyone. And I am sure there are people like Newton and there are boys who are naive, sweet and rowdy, like my part in Bareilly…. The humanness is something I loved,\u201d the actor told PTI in an interview.<\/p>\n
Shahid, a 2013 biopic directed by Hansal Mehta, was based on the life of lawyer and human rights activist Shahid Azmi who was assassinated in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201c…Hansal sir narrated me his story and on a human level, I was moved that there was somebody like him. That film also changed me as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n
He spent a lot of time with Shahid\u2019s family, trying to know him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was such variation in his life starting from being a victim, to briefly going to a terrorist camp, to landing in Tihar Jail and then becoming this human rights lawyer. It was a fascinating life. What was it that was driving him to go to these extremes? I tried to achieve that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film earned him his first National Film Award. It also started one of the most successful collaborations between an actor and director in Hindi cinema.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found Hansal sir through this film and today we share a great bond,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When Rao was starting his career he had a few directors on his wish-list and Vikramaditya Motwane was one of them.<\/p>\n
The actor said he had reached out to the director while he was making Udaan and Lootera. They eventually collaborated on Trapped, a survival drama about a man who accidently gets locked in a newly-constructed high-rise in Mumbai without food, water or electricity.<\/p>\n
\u201c…When you work in Mumbai, you get to know that people are making films, so after doing \u2018LSD\u2019, I went to meet him for \u2018Udaan\u2019. He said he wanted a younger boy and by the time I went for Lootera, he had found Ranveer Singh.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Trapped came Rao\u2019s way, the actor was completely bowled over by the idea of the survival drama.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe film has taken me to places both physically and mentally as an actor, I wouldn\u2019t have gone otherwise. I lost seven kgs in 18 days as I did not eat anything for 15 days. The recognition and love that I got for this film was immense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had no idea how my body would look or react if I don\u2019t eat for ten days as I had not done that ever before. I was going with the flow, it was very much in the moment, like how it was happening in the film.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another film that is close to Rao\u2019s heart is Newton, which was India\u2019s official entry to the Oscars.<\/p>\n
He played Newton Kumar, an honest government clerk who is sent on election duty to a Naxal-affected area in Chhattisgarh.<\/p>\n
Newton was an idealist but Rao could connect with the character\u2019s philosophy and ideology. It was supposed to be an indie film but it ended up doing great at the box office.<\/p>\n
\u201c…It was a super hit in the conventional way so it inspired a lot of people to make content-driven cinema. There is a market for such films and people want to watch them. \u2018Newton\u2019 has given a lot to our cinema,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Another turning point in his career came with Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari\u2019s Bareilly Ki Barfi, which proved that he is an all-rounder in acting. The film put him in the commercial entertainment zone like no other film had done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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