Name Of The Game

Actors and shooting stars Rajkummar Rao and Aditi Rao Hydari have little in common—except for talent, focus, a deep love of their craft and a name that is beginning to wield power, writes Mayank Shekhar.

- Mayank Shekhar

It's so beautiful, na,” Aditi Rao Hydari sighs, high up in the air, on a stuck Ferris wheel. “We could’ve been at a restaurant instead,” Rajkummar Rao, next to her, grumbles. Then, Hydari fishes out a “It’s box of chocolates from her bag and wishes him a happy wedding anniversary. Rao hands her a piece. “Thankoo,” she adorably manages while chewing. The giant wheel starts up again.

This popular chocolate brand’s one-minute ad, streaming on YouTube—with a string of “so-cutes” and “they-look-adorables” in the comments section—is the only time Hydari and Rao, playing husband-wife, have been on screen together. And their chemistry is palpable. Now, in the vanity van after the ELLE photo shoot—which is also the first time they’ve posed together for a magazine cover—it’s quite the same.

I ask if they’ve come close to being in a film together. “Probably there were times when…” he trails off. She chips in, “But, I feel like he’s....” “A really stupid guy,” he finishes. “Yeah, that too,” she agrees, before telling me how supremely comfortable she feels in his company.

And to think Hydari and Rao have such little in common. Where they come from, to begin with. Originally from Hyderabad, Hydari calls herself, “a khichdi: the poster child for national integration. My nani is Konkani Mangalorean. My nana is Telugu. My father is Bohri Muslim, with Irish or Scottish blood, from his mother’s half…I am so mixed.”