Birthday special: Rajkummar Rao and his craving for more challenging scripts

When we spoke about what wish he would like to fulfil on his birthday, the actor quipped, “I never had an unfulfilled wish. I always wanted to be an actor, and that’s what I have become. So, I cherish that till date. God has been kind to me.”

But was his struggle before becoming the Rajkummar Rao of today? He answered, “My struggle wasn’t any different. Getting the first film is always a tough task because there are so many people who come to this city every day to become an actor. So, there was the usual stuff of looking for work, I also had to face rejections but now, the real task or struggle is to choose the right script. And this is something that’s going to be there forever.”

Now that he has become the Rajkummar Rao everyone is talking about, has there been a change that he has noticed? “I was a film student at FTTI and now, I am student at Bollywood for acting. Of course, people know me now probably a little more and I am making a little more money but I am still as curious as I was back then.”

And what does he have to say about the “Bankable actor” tag that directors have started to give him? “It is overwhelming to know that people have such kind of faith in me and my work. They appreciate the effort I put in and the sincerity but I don’t think about it or keep it in my head. I want to keep myself away from such thoughts and just want to have fun in my work and be focussed towards it.”

In the span of over a decade, while reviews about Rajkumar’s film have always been extremely overwhelming for the actor, his personality has not changed much. You’d often hear people saying he was humble back then and even now, despite back to back successes, things aren’t different.

On being asked what is the reason behind it, the actor says it’s all because he plays characters which needs to be real and for that, he stays real to people around.

“I want to keep things real around me. I believe everything is very momentary, so I enjoy momentary success and praises but keep a tab on reality too. That’s also because I want to be real on screen. If I am myself not real how will I convince my audience,” remarked Rajkummar.

While he is continuously climbing up the ladder of success, the one thing he is extremely happy about is the change in the film industry and the audience.

When asked if he still thinks box office numbers can affect one’s career, the Bareilly Ki Barfi actor said, “I am sure there are still people who want to cast crowd pulling actors. I have nothing against them. People want to be safe. But yes things have changed, audience and filmmakers are welcoming content driven films and its a good change. I would credit audience for the same because they are making this definite change.”

He added, “I am happy with what I have done so far. My films have been huge success at the box office too. Trapped, Aligarh, Shahid, and Bareilly Ki Barfi, many have been tagged among the successful films. Shahid, Aligarh and Trapped, these films are for life, people can watch it even 20 years from now.

People want to tell different stories in different way. This year, films with high content have been a success at box office. People, our audience wants stories and actors play characters but not be themselves.”

Rajkummar has many indie performances to his credits but would things have been different had he been a commercial actor? “Things would have been different but it could have done well or wouldn’t have worked for me at all. So, can’t really guess. But I am happy the way journey has been. I am proud of mostly of my films.”

He also spoke about how he chooses a script and if there’s a conscious effort to keep a balance between indie films and commercial scripts. He said, “I go with the flow, if I like a script and I find it exciting, I say yes. But I am trying not to put myself in a bracket. I don’t want to be called an actor who can do only one sort of genre or pull off only real characters, I want to experiment. I want to push myself, do what I have never done. I want to surprise my audience and myself.”

And it wouldn’t be wrong to say that he has been able to do the same. But while a lot of his films have been critically acclaimed, films like Trapped did not make much at the box office but Rajkummar quashed the assumption and told us that Trapped was able to recover it’s making cost and garnered profits, “Trapped made money for my producers. We never thought it would make what it made. It was a limited release, so we were practical in our expectations. But it did well. I get so many messages till now for Trapped. Now it’s on Amazon and doing well on it. That’s what you want, you want your films to reach to the audience no matter what the medium is.”

Now, the actor has two major projects coming up. At first, we spoke about Newton and what made him sign the film. “Manish Mundra called me and then I met Amit (scriptwriter) who said he has written the script keeping me in mind. The moment I read the script, I fell in love with it. It’s such a unique story and something has never been told before. That’s what I look for in the scripts I sign, it was a challenge. I just read it and I said I am on. It has won so many awards and has done so well internationally.”

Newton is another film inspired by a real-life character. It seems as if Rajkummar has found his comfort in such characters, as he is also playing onscreen Subhash Chandra Bose, but he corrects us instantly and says he is always nervous and scared about what he takes up.

“No way! I am not an expert in such characters. I feel nervous. Scared. You should see me when I accept a script, I am very scared. But whatever comes out on screen is from the fear. Like for Bose, I shaved half of my head, gained weight, all of this just to gain confidence within me to play such parts. I have to be honest to my characters, and it is my job.”

He continued, “They are challenging roles. I was thrilled when I was offered Bose but I knew it would be tough and I will need to do a lot of hard work and it is a big responsibility when you play such a part. Also, I am not a conventional casting for the role so I had to work really hard to get into the emotional phase and get everything right.”

The actor ended the conversation with a hope to keep getting such characters to play and praises from the audience, and we are sure this will keep happening. Well, we wish him all the luck and all warm wishes.