Rajkummar Rao is an Indian actor known primarily for his work in Hindi cinema. A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, he is recognised for his preference for content-driven and independent films, and for portraying middle-class characters with naturalistic detail. He has received several major Indian film awards, including a National Film Award and Filmfare Awards.
| Full name | Rajkummar Rao |
|---|---|
| Born | 31 August 1984, Gurgaon, Haryana, India |
| Education | Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, University of Delhi; Film and Television Institute of India, Pune |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 2010–present |
| Spouse | Patralekhaa (m. 2021) |
| Notable awards | National Film Award for Best Actor; Filmfare Awards |
Rajkummar Rao was born in Gurgaon, Haryana, and grew up in a middle-class household. He completed his schooling in Gurgaon and pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree from Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, affiliated with the University of Delhi. While in Delhi, he was associated with theatre group Shri Ram Centre and the Kshitij Repertory. He subsequently moved to Pune to study acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), graduating in 2008, after which he relocated to Mumbai to pursue a film career.
Rao made his feature film debut with Dibakar Banerjee's anthology Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010). He followed this with supporting roles in Ragini MMS (2011) and Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur – Part 2 (2012).
His performance as the lawyer Shahid Azmi in Hansal Mehta's biographical film Shahid (2013) earned him the National Film Award for Best Actor. The film marked the beginning of a long-running collaboration with director Hansal Mehta. He went on to appear in Queen (2014), CityLights (2014), and Aligarh (2016).
In 2017, Rao starred in Trapped, directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, and in Newton, directed by Amit V. Masurkar. Newton was India's official entry to the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category that year. The same year, he played a supporting role in the horror-comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi. His performance in Bareilly Ki Barfi won him the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Rao moved into commercially mainstream cinema with Stree (2018), a horror-comedy directed by Amar Kaushik, which became a major box-office success. He has since appeared in films including Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), Made in China (2019), Roohi (2021), Badhaai Do (2022), HIT: The First Case (2022), Srikanth (2024), and Stree 2 (2024).
He featured in the Netflix anthology Bombay Talkies contributions and starred in the streaming film Ludo (2020), directed by Anurag Basu, and The White Tiger (2021), an English-language Netflix film directed by Ramin Bahrani and based on Aravind Adiga's novel. He also appeared in the streaming biographical drama Bose: Dead/Alive (2017), in which he played Subhas Chandra Bose.
Rao married actress Patralekhaa Paul in November 2021 in Chandigarh. The couple, who first worked together in CityLights (2014), reside in Mumbai.
Rao is regarded as one of the most prominent figures of the new wave of Hindi cinema that emerged in the 2010s, in which actors trained at institutes such as the FTII and the National School of Drama gained leading-role visibility outside the traditional star system. His career has spanned independent, festival-oriented films and large-scale commercial productions, and he has been associated with films addressing social themes, including caste, sexuality, and electoral democracy.