We told you how 2017 was the year of Rajkummar Rao. He even featured in our Men of the Year special and then we were able to lock him down for our January cover.

He spoke at length about his life, his struggles, his career, the path to the top of Bollywood and of course his next film Omerta, which hits the theatres this weekend. Here are some gems from the inetrview:

Forced to party

Rao comes across as more of a serious guy than your average party Joe. But he does walk an extra mile for his loved ones at times.

“I am too tired after working the whole day to dress up and go out again, but I do it for loved ones”

Nothing came easy

It might all seem rosy for Rao at present, but this success has been built on many years of hard work. The journey from FTII to the Bollywood summit has taught him everything about life.

“I gave 5-7 years of my life just to learn the craft doing theatre, at film school and then in Mumbai. Whatever I am doing today is because of those seven years of hard work”

Bose scared the shit out of him

You don’t expect an actor of Rao’s calibre to feel scared by a role, but he actually was. Turns out the web series on Subhash Chandra Bose was his undoing of sorts. 

“See, when I took up Bose, I was shit scared, and that is exactly why I did it. Because I was scared, I decided to push myself”

Omerta will shock audiences 

Omerta has been critically acclaimed in the indie circles, but Rao had a different choice of words to describe the film. 

“I want to surprise my audience. When Omerta comes out, hopefully people will be shocked even more. And I love doing that”

Made him a darker person

It was only until the director of the film Hansal Mehta traded secrets that we got to know the secret behind his ‘shocking’ performance in Omerta.

“It was like he (Rao) had become a different person, a dark person. We didn’t like being around him. Even Patralekha said the same thing when she came to the set once”