Rajkummar Rao has proved himself to be the powerhouse of acting talent over and over again with his skills.
But he has also created an audience of his own with his different film choices, which were once considered off-beat but are now part of the mainstream.
The talented actor had a very humble beginning after he passed out of Film & Television Institute of India, with a degree in acting.
Starting out with a brief role in Ram Gopal Varma’s 2010 film ‘Rann’, Rajkummar’s breakthrough debut came with Dibakar Banerjee’s experimental anthology film ‘Love Sex Aur Dhokha.’
In it, he played the role of a manipulative guy who lures a girl to have sex with him, so that he can make and sell its video for money.
The film, along with his performance, met with critical acclaim. But he was soon to be typecast in the mean boy image in his next couple of films including ‘Ragini MMS’, that used the same found-footage filming technique of his previous film.
Rajkummar later appeared as a bad cop in Bejoy Nambiar’s thriller ‘Shaitan’ and played the role of Shamshaad in Anurag Kashyap’s second part of his crime magnum opus ‘Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2’. It again brought him into limelight. His role was however, cut short during the editing process.
But the limelight was overshadowed after minor roles in two films, ‘Chittagong’ and ‘Talaash.’ He then acted in Abhishek Kapoor’s ‘Kai Po Che!’, which earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
2013 proved to be a turning point in Rajkummar’s career with Hansal Mehta’s biographical film ‘Shahid’, where he portrayed the character of late lawyer Shahid Azmi. His performance earned him the National Award for Best Actor as well as the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
Rajkummar then did a daring move to act as a supporting role in a female driven film ‘Queen’, which no mainstream actor agrees to do because of their fragile ego.
He then had a dip in his career after some not-so-remarkable films that did not do well with both the critics and the audience.
Rajkummar then reunited with Hansal on ‘Aligarh’, which starred Manoj Bajpayee in the lead role of a homosexual man. The limelight was taken by Manoj’s performance, but Rajkummar still managed to shine in his scenes.
2017 proved to be another great year for Rajkummar with some amazing films in his kitty like Vikramaditya Motwane’s survival thriller ‘Trapped’, the comedy drama ‘Bareily Ki Barfi’ and ‘Newton.’
His role of Pritam Vidrohi earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor while Newton, saw him play an honest election officer and proved to be a major success. It was India’s official submission for Oscars that year.
He also forayed into digital space the same year with the web series ‘Bose: Dead/Alive’, where he essayed Subhash Chandra Bose.
The Hansal-Rajkummar duo returned with ‘Omerta’ which saw the latter, play the terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the person who killed British journalist Daniel Pearl.
Rajkummar also tasted huge commercial success with the horror comedy ‘Stree’, directed by Amar Kaushik.
With so many amazing performances and films under his belt, Rajkummar has proved himself to be an unconventional actor with a mass appeal.
The secret to his success lies in his hard work that he puts into every character that he plays on screen, and has proved to be a torch bearer for people like Vicky Kaushal and Ayushmann Khurrana.