Sushant Singh Rajput

Sushant Singh Rajput
Sushant at Filmfare Glamour & Style Awards, 2016
Born	(1986-01-21) 21 January 1986[1] Patna, Bihar, India
Nationality	Indian
Occupation	Actor
Years active	2008–present

Sushant Singh Rajput is an Indian film and television actor.^[2] He started his career with television serials, including an award-winning performance in the soap opera Pavitra Rishta (2009–2011) and as a participant in two dance reality shows. He then entered films with a role as one of the three male leads in the drama Kai Po Che! (2013), for which he received critical acclaim as well as three Best Male Debut awards. His other notable films since then have been as male lead of the romantic comedy Shuddh Desi Romance (2014) and as the titular detective in the thriller Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015), both of which were produced by Yash Raj Films. He had his biggest commercial success with the role of a Pakistani Muslim in the fantasy drama PK (2014), which is currently the highest-grossing Indian film. With the release of M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, his popularity increased as the role was critically acclaimed as well. For the movie he was trained professionally by some leading cricketers and he spent hours in the nets for mastering those trademark cricketing shots of Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Background and education

Sushant was born in Patna, Bihar.^[3] His ancestral village is Maldiha in Purnea, Bihar.^[4] Sushant has four elder sisters with him being the youngest in the family.One sister lives in US, another in Chandigarh and the other two live in Delhi.^[5] One sister, Meetu Singh, is a National,state-level cricketer.^[6] While growing up in Patna, Sushant was very close to his mother and had a more formal relationship with his father.^[7] Her death in 2002 left Sushant devastated. This happened just after Sushant sat his 12th standard exams and it was in the same year that the family moved from Patna to Delhi.^[7]

Sushant attended St. Karen's High School in Gola Road, Patna^[8][9] and Kulachi Hansraj Model School in New Delhi.^[10][11] As a student, he was academically sound and was a national Olympiad winner in Physics.^[7] In all, he cleared as many as eleven engineering entrance exams.^[7] He then enrolled for studying Mechanical Engineering at the Delhi College of Engineering.^[7] However, he only completed three years in engineering college before dropping out to pursue an acting career.^[7]

Career

Early steps

While he was a student at Delhi College of Engineering, Sushant enrolled in Shiamak Davar's dance classes because, he says, he "wanted to learn dancing and there were no girls in my engineering class."^[12] It was only gradually that the idea of making a career in acting came to him. Some of the other students in the dance class, who were very seriously trying to enter films, were attending Barry John's drama classes. Sushant also began going there. Here, he found his passion for acting saying, "I found the experience liberating. I realised that I could communicate with the audience. I knew I wanted to do this forever."^[13]

Within a few months of joining the dance class, Sushant was selected to be a member of Davar's standard dance troupe. In 2005, he was chosen to be one of the group of background dancers at the 51st Filmfare Awards. In 2006, he was part of the troupe that went to Australia to perform in the cultural program at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. By this time, he was sick and tired of engineering, where he was failing papers and had no real interest in the subject. He was very happy and successful in the dance and drama classes and felt unhappy and "claustrophobic" in the engineering classroom. He therefore decided to do only what he was good at doing. He dropped out of engineering and devoted himself full-time to dancing and acting.

In order to make a break into films, Sushant moved to Mumbai, joined Nadira Babbar's Ekjute theatre group and remained a part of it for two-and-a half years.^[12] During this time, featured in the TV advertisement of Nestle Munch, which became famous throughout India.

Television (2008–12)

In 2008, Sushant was spotted by the casting team of Balaji Telefilms. His personality and acting talent had been observed by them while he was on stage for one of Ekjute's plays. They invited him to audition for them, and Rajput landed the role of Preet Juneja in Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil. His character was killed quite early in the show, but he was such a popular character with the viewers that he was brought back for the series finale in the form of a spirit, looking on as his family celebrated after going through difficult times.

In June 2009, Sushant began starring in Pavitra Rishta as Manav Deshmukh, a very serious and mature character working as a mechanic to help support his family. His work in this serial received wide appreciation and Sushant received three major television awards for best male actor and most popular actor. This performance was his breakthrough and gave him the stepping stone into films.

In May 2010, Sushant joined the dance reality show Zara Nachke Dikha 2. He had already proven his acting talents by getting awards for his performance in Pavitra Rishta, now he wanted to establish that he had good dancing skills and could be trained further. In Zara Nachke Dikha, Sushant was a part of the Mast Kalandar Boys Team. He did the shooting for both Pavitra Rishta and Zara Nachke Dikha 2 at one and the same time. On Mother's Day Special episode, his team dedicated a performance to his mother, who had died in 2003.^[14]

In December 2010, Sushant participated in another dance-based reality show, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 4, where he was paired with choreographer Shampa Sonthalia.^[15] In October 2011, Rajput decided to quit Pavitra Rishta to pursue a film-making course abroad.

Film career (2013–present)

From left to right: Rajput, Rajkumar Rao, Abhishek Kapoor and Amit Sadh at the promotion of Kai Po Che!, 2013

Sushant auditioned for Abhishek Kapoor's Kai Po Che! and was selected to play one of the three leads, along with Rajkumar Rao and Amit Sadh. Based on the Chetan Bhagat's novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life, the film was proved to be a critical and commercial success and Sushant's portrayal of Ishaan Bhatt, an ex-district level cricketer who is a victim of politics in the cricketing selection fraternity, was praised.^[16] Critic Rajeev Masand wrote, "But it's Sushant Singh Rajput, making his film debut as Ishaan, who it's hard to take your eyes off. The actor has an indescribable presence and it's clear from his confidence and distinct likability that a star is born."^[17] One India Entertainment reports, "Sushant Singh Rajput makes a brilliant and effortless debut with Kai Po Che". For his role in this film, Sushant received as many as five award nominations and won three awards for Best Male Debut.

Rajput with Vaani Kapoor(left) and Parineeti Chopra promoting Shuddh Desi Romance at Comedy Nights with Kapil in 2013

Rajput's second movie was Shuddh Desi Romance, alongside Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor. Directed by Maneesh Sharma and produced by Yash Raj Films, the film deals with the subject of live-in relationship and was completely filmed in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama praised Rajput's performance, saying "After leaving a tremendous impression in his first Hindi outing, Sushant Singh Rajput... brings a lot of freshness with his unpretentious and spontaneous act."^[18] Sukanya Verma from Rediff stated, "After a dynamic debut in Kai Po Che!, Rajput channelises his abundant energy to convey the childlike ineptitude of a man who wears his heart on a sleeve."^[19] Sushant's next role was in Rajkumar Hirani's 2014 film PK. Although his role was of a relatively minor character, the film gave him the opportunity to work with Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma. Upon its release, the film proved to be the highest-grossing Indian films.^[20][21]

After the out-and-out commercial Shuddh Desi Romance, Rajput's next role was in Parallel Cinema as the title character of Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! in Dibakar Banerjee's 2015 eponymous film.^[22] While his performance in the period film was appreciated, the film was only a medium success at the box office as is typical for Parallel Cinema.

As of April 2016, Rajput has completed work on two films, Neeraj Pandey's biogeographical sports drama M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, in which he has played the lead role of Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Dinesh Vijan's Raabta opposite Kriti Sanon and also stars Deepika Padukone in an item number.

Personal life

Sushant with Ankita Lokhande

Sushant met Ankita Lokhande on the sets of Pavitra Rishta, a TV serial in which they co-starred with each other.^[23] and it was reported in February 2011 that they had entered into an engagement.^[24] In 2016, they broke up.

Filmography

Television

Films

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2013	Kai Po Che	Ishaan Bhatt	Nominated—Filmfare Best Male Debut Award
2013	Shuddh Desi Romance	Raghu Ram
2014	PK	Sarfaraz Yousuf	Supporting Actor
2015	Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!	Byomkesh Bakshi
2016	M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story	Mahendra "Mahi" Singh Dhoni
2017	Raabta	Vaibhav	Filming
2017	Takadum	TBA	Pre-production[25][26]
2017	Untitled Tarun Mansukhani's film	TBA	Pre-production[27]
2017	Chanda Mama Door Ke	TBA	Pre-production[26][28]
TBA	Untitled Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!'s sequel	Byomkesh Bakshy	In development[29][30]

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of Indian film actors

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sushant Singh Rajput.

• Sushant Singh Rajput at the Internet Movie Database