NEW DELHI : Rajkummar Rao will play the lead role in a new film on the life of Srikanth Bolla, a visually impaired industrialist, to be produced by Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series.
The film will be directed by Tushar Hiranandani and written by Sumit Purohit and Jagdeep Sidhu.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Rao started his career by making a small, uncredited appearance as a newsreader in Ram Gopal Varma's 2010 political thriller Rann but was first noticed in Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), an anthology of three stories.
A lead role in horror film Ragini MMS (2011) and supporting characters in Bejoy Nambiar's crime thriller Shaitan (2011), Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur-Part 2 (2012) and Reema Kagtis suspense thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within followed though Rao gained significant acclaim and notice only for Abhishek Kapoor’s buddy drama film Kai Po Che! (2013), co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Amit Sadh, based on Chetan Bhagat's 2008 novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life.
In 2013, Rao appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama Shahid, for which he won the national award for best actor, and later also collaborated with the director on his drama film Citylights (2014). Supporting roles in female-centric films like Queen (2014) and Dolly Ki Doli (2015) led to his breakthrough phase in 2017, when he appeared in survival drama Trapped, romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi, directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and black comedy Newton, India’s official entry to the Academy Awards that year. In 2018, he joined the ₹100 crore club with his horror-comedy Stree.
Rao who made his digital debut with ALTBalaji's historical biographical web mini-series Bose: Dead/Alive, has since then seen films like Chhalaang and Ludo released directly on video streaming platforms during the pandemic in 2020. His horror-comedy Roohi was released in cinemas before the second covid wave.
