Rajkummar Rao: Five Roles Before Prahaar
Five roles that mark Rajkummar Rao's path, from Love Sex Aur Dhokha to Srikanth, as Prahaar arrives in cinemas. Awards and box office noted.
With Prahaar: The Ujjwal Nikam Story in theatres, it is a good moment to look back at how Rajkummar Rao got here. Here are five roles that mark his path, drawn from his career summary on Wikipedia and from news coverage.
1. Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010)
After training at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune, Rao made his film debut in Dibakar Banerjee's found-footage anthology. He played Adarsh, a supermarket supervisor, and lost 6 kilograms in a month to prepare, according to Wikipedia. The film was acclaimed and profitable.
2. Shahid (2013)
Hansal Mehta's biographical drama gave him the lead as lawyer Shahid Azmi. Rao met Azmi's family, studied the Quran and attended court proceedings to prepare. The role won him the National Film Award for Best Actor and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. It is the closest earlier cousin to his courtroom role in Prahaar.
3. Newton (2017)
Amit V. Masurkar's black comedy premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was met with unanimous critical praise. Rao played an upright government clerk sent on election duty to a Naxal-controlled town, and the role earned him the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor, per Wikipedia.
4. Stree 2 (2024)
After a run of commercial setbacks, the horror-comedy sequel gave him the highest-grossing film of his career. Wikipedia reports it was the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2024, with a worldwide gross of over Rs 8.75 billion. Movie Talkies lists it as his first Rs 300 crore film, at Rs 581 crore.
5. Srikanth (2024)
Rao played the visually impaired industrialist Srikanth Bolla in a biopic, spending time at schools for the blind to learn mannerisms. Wikipedia says it ended a series of commercial failures and earned him another Filmfare Critics award for Best Actor.
And now Prahaar
In Prahaar, directed by Avinash Arun, he plays special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam in the Ajmal Kasab trial. The Hindu's Anuj Kumar said the film is caught between a nuanced procedural and a commercial urge to make a patriotic spectacle, while praising the performances. Critics rated it widely, from 2 to 4 out of 5 in the [Bollywood.com](http://Bollywood.com) roundup. Wikipedia also lists him in DADA: The Sourav Ganguly Story, whose first look was set to be unveiled on July 8.
A pattern worth noting
Wikipedia observes that Rao has been criticised for repeatedly playing similar roles, including the small-town young man in a crisis. Prahaar, like Shahid, asks him to play a figure grounded in real events. Whether it works at the box office is another matter, since its first weekend was soft according to a tracker table from Sacnic.
What we could not confirm
We could not confirm the details of his preparation for each role from first-hand interviews, since they are drawn from Wikipedia's summary of cited news reports. We could not confirm the current status of DADA beyond the Wikipedia listing. Awards and box-office figures are as reported there and by Movie Talkies, and trackers can differ.
Sources
*Cover photo: Maximilian Bühn, Wikimedia Commons, *[*https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rajkummar_Rao_World_Premiere_Newton_Zoopalast_Berlinale_2017_01.jpg*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rajkummar_Rao_World_Premiere_Newton_Zoopalast_Berlinale_2017_01.jpg)* (CC BY-SA 4.0).*