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Rajkummar Rao delivered two superlative back-to-back performances last year – as a diffident school PE teacher in Hansal Mehta’s Chhalaang and an endearing small-town lover in Ludo, reminding us that few actors can do what he does. Arun Janardhan spoke to the versatile actor who stars in this month’s much anticipated Netflix release The White Tiger, about his craft and what’s next for him

- Arun Janardhan

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.