WALKING A TIGHTROPE

Following the monster success of Stree 2, Rajkummar Rao opens up about navigating artistic fulfilment and box-office glory.

- ANKUR PATHAK

RAJKUMMAR RAO IS in an unusual place. He has just starred in the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2024—Stree 2—but the gravity of it hasn’t really sunk in. He says that today feels like just another day. Which makes sense. If this was a biopic of a quintessential outsider who makes it in a rarefied industry, this would be the point where the actor becomes the star, the star becomes insufferable, begins to lose his grip on reality, before the dark tentacles of fame finally lead to him sabotaging his own success.

Except, this is real life, and not a silver-screen tragedy. Far from witnessing an unhinged superstar on a drug-fuelled odyssey (a much more entertaining story to write), Rao is a portrait of studied calm. It has been several weeks since Stree 2 broke every conceivable record. He’s had time to sift through the avalanche of messages and there’s a few that have stuck. “They’re from people I don’t know,” Rao says. “From people who are perhaps still trying to make it—actors, writers, musicians.” Outsiders. “They’ve written to me saying that this feels like a personal victory. Like they themselves have made it. This idea that my success is a vindication of a thousand unfulfilled dreams—that stayed with me.” Right now, for him, what’s keeping him sane is periodic reminders that not every film is going to be Stree 2 or going to earn those stratospheric numbers. He downplays his own contribution, and is quick to point out other reasons that led to the film becoming the monstrous hit that it is. “Its success can’t be down to any one of us; it happened because of the film Amar (Kaushik, the director) made, the vision Dinoo (producer Dinesh Vijan) had, the Umm—it very much is. It’s a well-made one. “If you’re implying I’m running after a certain kind of film because I think it will work, that’s not true. I did