When he walked, rather danced, on to the sets of the Netflix film Ludo for the first time, Rajkummar Rao carried a boom box playing music from Mithun Chakraborty’s films. His character Aaloo, a restaurateur, is a fan of the actor, to such an extent that when Aaloo reels off the menu to customers, he does so in rapid speed, thrusting and twisting his pelvis in a mock dance reminiscent of the Disco Dancer star.
When Rao’s mother passed away while he was shooting in Chhattisgarh for the 2017 film Newton, the actor had to leave the set to attend to her last rites. Even as the producers contemplated a break in shoot schedule, Rao was back on the job two days later, leaving the crew in awe.
While shooting a sequence in the 2013 release Shahid, where his character is tortured in a police station, Rao took off all his clothes because he felt wearing trousers would mess up the scene. He wanted to be left alone for some time, didn’t say anything when the crew came back into the room, and just nodded to indicate he was ready. As the cameras rolled, he started crying. Even after director Hansal Mehta called “cut” and the scene was done, Rao kept crying for three hours.
This story is from the January 2021 edition of GQ India.
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This story is from the January 2021 edition of GQ India.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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