Dada of biopics: Rajkummar Rao is living it up playing the lives of others
Rajkummar Rao seems to be emerging as Bollywood's go-to actor for biographical roles. His act as Sourav Ganguly in Dada marks the eighth time he'll play a real-life protagonist.
There is no official Guinness record category for actors starring in the maximum number of biopics. If there was, Rajkumar Rao would be a Bollywood frontrunner. The first look of Rao's upcoming film, Dada, dropped this week and, although many on social media feel he doesn't quite resemble the film's subject – former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly – it reiterates an interesting fact about the actor's choice of roles.
Dada will be the eighth time that Rao lives out the lives of others when the film opens next year. This, even as Rao prepares for the release of a new biopic, Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story, on August 7, 2026.
Few actors have given biographical performances in Bollywood with his frequency and, over the past 15 years since he first did it in the 2012 film, Chittagong, Rao seems to have emerged among Bollywood's go-to actors when it comes to recreating real life on screen.
He was Lokenath Bal in Bedabrata Pain's Chittagong, the freedom fighter who played a significant role in Surya Sen's Chittagong armoury raid of 1930. Pitted against talents such as Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rao -- still a budding talent in 2012 -- caught audience attention thanks to the understated authenticity with which he brought alive Bal's authority.
SHAHID WAS BEST-ACTOR CLASS
That understated quality has always been Rao's weapon, in fictional roles as well as biographical performances. It is something that lets him quietly become the character, so much so that the audience often tends to forget he is only an actor living out the role on the screen. It's something that happened notably in Hansal Mehta's Shahid, which released the same year as Chittagong.
Rao was only two years into his career when Mehta cast him in the complex role of Shahid Azmi, the lawyer and human rights activist with a turbulent childhood who was known for defending individuals questionably accused of terrorism. Azmi was 32 when he was gunned down and Rao was 27 when he won a National Award as Best Actor for the film.
As in the case of Sourav Ganguly, Rao bears very little physical resemblance to Shahid Azmi. He brought alive the essence of the man simply by capturing Azmi's resilience that defied all societal resistance. Perhaps no outcry happened over Mehta's choice of Rao as Shahid Azmi simply because the lawyer-activist wasn't a familiar face among social media trolls.
Few may have noticed, but Rao's tryst with real-life portrayals has continued fairly regularly after his award-winning performance in Shahid. His role of the journalist Deepu Sebastian is a delight to watch in Hansal Mehta's Aligarh (2015). The film is based on Professor Ramchandra Siras (played by Manoj Bajpayee) of Aligarh Muslim University, and starts a conversation about sexual choices. Although not the protagonist, Rao credibly interpreted Sebastian as the life of the film.
In 2017, he would play Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in Ekta Kapoor's series, Bose: Dead/Alive. Rao imagined Bose with a screen presence that matched the revolutionary leader's larger-than-life aura. He morphed admirably to fit every known description of one of Indian history's greatest leaders.
OMERTA AND SRIKANTH ARE TOP PICKS, TOO
If the past half a decade has marked a rise for Rao as an actor, the period has also seen two of his best biographical performances. These have been Omerta in 2018 and Srikanth in 2024.
Purely in terms of a challenge, Hansal Mehta's Omerta would seem like a tricky deal for any actor. Rao had taken up the central role of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British terrorist of Pakistani origin. He went into Omerta knowing this was the story of a real-life villain who'd find no sympathy among the audience, a man who was imprisoned for the 1994 kidnappings of Westerners in India and the plotting of The Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl's murder.
Rao gave Omar Saeed's personality a chilling interpretation, disturbing to the core. Many among his audience felt the performance redeemed the film that otherwise fell short of the fiery analysis the plot demanded.
If a biographical role seeks nuances of a personality in terms of body language and expressions, Rao could deliver a master-class. Srikanth in 2024 proves why. The Tushar Hiranandani directorial cast the actor as Srikanth Bolla, a visually-impaired man who survived the odds to become an industrialist and founded Bollant Industries. Rao reportedly researched in depth to understand Srikanth Bolla and came up with a performance that lifted the film beyond melodrama.
The fact is, biopics have a way of finding Rajkummar Rao. He will soon be seen in Avinash Arun's Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story, a film on special prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam whose highlight cases include the 1993 Bombay bombings, the Gulshan Kumar murder, the Pramod Mahajan murder trial and the Ajmal Kasab trial. Vikramaditya Motwane's Dada is scheduled to release in 2027. The film could be Rao's toughest biopic test yet, given the initial resistance by sections of social media over his lack of resemblance with the master cricketer. Rajkummar Rao sure will have to step up and hit the ball outside the park.
There is no official Guinness record category for actors starring in the maximum number of biopics. If there was, Rajkumar Rao would be a Bollywood frontrunner. The first look of Rao's upcoming film, Dada, dropped this week and, although many on social media feel he doesn't quite resemble the film's subject – former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly – it reiterates an interesting fact about the actor's choice of roles.
Dada will be the eighth time that Rao lives out the lives of others when the film opens next year. This, even as Rao prepares for the release of a new biopic, Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story, on August 7, 2026.
Few actors have given biographical performances in Bollywood with his frequency and, over the past 15 years since he first did it in the 2012 film, Chittagong, Rao seems to have emerged among Bollywood's go-to actors when it comes to recreating real life on screen.
He was Lokenath Bal in Bedabrata Pain's Chittagong, the freedom fighter who played a significant role in Surya Sen's Chittagong armoury raid of 1930. Pitted against talents such as Manoj Bajpayee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rao -- still a budding talent in 2012 -- caught audience attention thanks to the understated authenticity with which he brought alive Bal's authority.
SHAHID WAS BEST-ACTOR CLASS
That understated quality has always been Rao's weapon, in fictional roles as well as biographical performances. It is something that lets him quietly become the character, so much so that the audience often tends to forget he is only an actor living out the role on the screen. It's something that happened notably in Hansal Mehta's Shahid, which released the same year as Chittagong.
Rao was only two years into his career when Mehta cast him in the complex role of Shahid Azmi, the lawyer and human rights activist with a turbulent childhood who was known for defending individuals questionably accused of terrorism. Azmi was 32 when he was gunned down and Rao was 27 when he won a National Award as Best Actor for the film.
As in the case of Sourav Ganguly, Rao bears very little physical resemblance to Shahid Azmi. He brought alive the essence of the man simply by capturing Azmi's resilience that defied all societal resistance. Perhaps no outcry happened over Mehta's choice of Rao as Shahid Azmi simply because the lawyer-activist wasn't a familiar face among social media trolls.
Few may have noticed, but Rao's tryst with real-life portrayals has continued fairly regularly after his award-winning performance in Shahid. His role of the journalist Deepu Sebastian is a delight to watch in Hansal Mehta's Aligarh (2015). The film is based on Professor Ramchandra Siras (played by Manoj Bajpayee) of Aligarh Muslim University, and starts a conversation about sexual choices. Although not the protagonist, Rao credibly interpreted Sebastian as the life of the film.
In 2017, he would play Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in Ekta Kapoor's series, Bose: Dead/Alive. Rao imagined Bose with a screen presence that matched the revolutionary leader's larger-than-life aura. He morphed admirably to fit every known description of one of Indian history's greatest leaders.
OMERTA AND SRIKANTH ARE TOP PICKS, TOO
If the past half a decade has marked a rise for Rao as an actor, the period has also seen two of his best biographical performances. These have been Omerta in 2018 and Srikanth in 2024.
Purely in terms of a challenge, Hansal Mehta's Omerta would seem like a tricky deal for any actor. Rao had taken up the central role of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British terrorist of Pakistani origin. He went into Omerta knowing this was the story of a real-life villain who'd find no sympathy among the audience, a man who was imprisoned for the 1994 kidnappings of Westerners in India and the plotting of The Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl's murder.
Rao gave Omar Saeed's personality a chilling interpretation, disturbing to the core. Many among his audience felt the performance redeemed the film that otherwise fell short of the fiery analysis the plot demanded.
If a biographical role seeks nuances of a personality in terms of body language and expressions, Rao could deliver a master-class. Srikanth in 2024 proves why. The Tushar Hiranandani directorial cast the actor as Srikanth Bolla, a visually-impaired man who survived the odds to become an industrialist and founded Bollant Industries. Rao reportedly researched in depth to understand Srikanth Bolla and came up with a performance that lifted the film beyond melodrama.
The fact is, biopics have a way of finding Rajkummar Rao. He will soon be seen in Avinash Arun's Prahaar – The Ujjwal Nikam Story, a film on special prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam whose highlight cases include the 1993 Bombay bombings, the Gulshan Kumar murder, the Pramod Mahajan murder trial and the Ajmal Kasab trial. Vikramaditya Motwane's Dada is scheduled to release in 2027. The film could be Rao's toughest biopic test yet, given the initial resistance by sections of social media over his lack of resemblance with the master cricketer. Rajkummar Rao sure will have to step up and hit the ball outside the park.
