For Rajkummar Rao, struggle in Bollywood is not over; it has just changed

Actor Rajkummar Rao may have earned himself a National Award for Best Actor for biographical drama Shahid (2013), but he took his own time and struggled hard to make a mark in the film industry. The actor says getting scripts is no longer a problem, but there’s something else that’s a bigger challenge for him today.

“That struggle to get films has reduced. I get to choose from a lot more scripts offered than before. But now my struggle is to begin the shoot of my part in the films. I keep thinking, if I’ll be able to crack the character or not,” says Rajkummar, who was recently seen in Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped.

An alumnus of Film & Television Institute of India, Rajkummar has been part of critically acclaimed films such as Kai Po Che (2012), City Lights (2014) and Aligarh (2016), and he’s open to do more content driven films provided it makes sense.

“We [actors] can’t do just anything without giving it a thought. I don’t mind doing commercial potboilers but they should make some sense to me and not made for the heck of it. I’ve been offered some so-called comedies and larger than life films, but the scripts did not excite me,” he says.

Rajkummar has five films slated to release this year. “They are just good stories and I didn’t want to miss them. It fortunately turned out well for me and I was just finishing one film, took a break for a couple of weeks and then started again. This way, I could manage my time well. It’s just a coincidence that they are all releasing in the same year, and that’s not something I had planned,” adds Rajkummar.