Sushant Singh Rajput

During his course at the Delhi College of Engineering, Rajput enrolled himself in Shiamak Davar's dance classes.[6] Soon afterwards, he also began attending acting classes under the theatre director Barry John.[14][15] Rajput later stated that he found the experience to be liberating and wanted to continue doing it forever.[16] He featured as a background dancer in the Dhoom Again song of Dhoom 2 and in Ashwariya Rai's performance at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games.[17] In 2006,[18] he dropped out of his engineering course during his fourth year to begin a career in arts and performance.[19] He moved to Mumbai, took up odd jobs and small roles while working in the theatre industry.[20] In Mumbai, Rajput joined Nadira Babbar's theatre group called the Ekjute in which he remained for two and a half years.[21][22]

Rajput was spotted by a casting team of Balaji Telefilms while he was working at the Prithvi Theatre.[14] He was subsequently called for an audition and cast as a second lead in the television series Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil in 2008.[23][24] He had secured the role of Preet Singh Juneja, the step brother of the lead named Harshad Chopda and entered the show in its seventh episode.[25] The character was killed early in the show, but due to popularity among viewers was brought back in the series finale as a spirit looking on as his family celebrated coming out of difficult times.[26] The performance had made an impression on the producer Ekta Kapoor who vouched for him to be cast as the lead in another series Pavitra Rishta,[23] reportedly against the wishes of the hosting channel, Zee TV.[27][28]

In Pavitra Rishta, Rajput was cast as Manav Deshmukh who was an "ideal son and husband" and co-starred along with Ankita Lokhande.[29] The role was reportedly a breakthrough for him and for which he won various television awards,[30] including his first award for best actor in the Indian Television Academy Awards 2010.[31] He also won three major television awards in the categories of best male actor and most popular actor.[32] In 2010, he joined the dance reality show Zara Nachke Dikha in its second season as part of the Mast Kalandar Boys team.[33][32] On the Mother's Day special episode, the team dedicated a performance to Rajput's mother who had died.[34] Later in the same year, he also took part in the fourth season of another dance competition reality show called Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa and was paired alongside the choreographer Shampa Sonthalia; they emerged as the runners up of the season.[33]

Rajput continued to act in Pavitra Rishta from its first airing on 2009 till his exit in 2011,[35] having played the part of the protagonist of the series for two and a half years at the time of his exit.[36] He had stated that he intended to move to the United States to study filmmaking and had already gained experience behind the scenes in the film Raaz 2,[24] where he was an assistant director.[37] Rajput made a later reappearance in the final episode of Pavitra Rishta in 2014 after gaining critical acclaim in Bollywood.[36]

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

In 2011, Rajput was spotted by Mukesh Chhabra, the casting director of Kai Po Che!, who invited him for an audition.[38][39] He was in the process of enrolling for a course in filmmaking at Stanford University but decided to accept the offer.[14] He was subsequently cast in the role of Ishaan Bhatt, a district level cricketer who was a victim of politics in the selection fraternity and one of the three leads, along with Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh.[40][41] The film was directed by Abhishek Kapoor and based on the Chetan Bhagat novel called The 3 Mistakes of My Life, which dealt with the life of three friends affected by the 2001 Gujarat earthquake and the 2002 Gujarat riots was released in 2013 and became a commercial and critical success.[42] Rajput received a nomination for the Filmfare Awards in the category of best debut actor for his performance in the film.[43][44]

Before the release of his debut film Kai Po Che!, Rajput was signed in by Raj Kumar Hirani for a role in the Aamir Khan starring satirical drama called PK.[14][45] In the film, he was cast as the boyfriend to Anushka Sharma's character of a journalist.[46] He also entered into a deal with Yash Raj Films beginning with the starring role in the film Shuddh Desi Romance.[14] The film was a romantic comedy, where Rajput played the character of Raghu Ram Sitaram, a tour guide who fell in love with a woman on the way to his own marriage, it featured Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor.[15][47] Shuddh Desi Romance was released in 2013 and became a sleeper hit.[48] Following the release of his first two films, Rajput was described by the veteran director Shekhar Kapur as "one of the most inspiring young actors to emerge out of India" and was occasionally referred to as the "next SRK".[14] The film PK was later released in 2014 and became the highest grossing Indian film.[49][50]

In June 2013, Yash Raj Films and Dibakar Banerjee Productions announced the joint production of Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! with Sushant Singh Rajput in the starring role.[51][52] Rajput began working on the new project following the release of his second film Shuddh Desi Romance.[53] The film was a mystery action-thriller featuring Byomkesh Bakshi, a fictional detective originally created by the Bengali writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay.[54] Dibakar Banerjee, the director of the film and the IP rights holder of Byomkesh Bakshi stories had signed him in to play the part of the protagonist.[14] Before the release, Rajput made a special appearance in the police crime drama CID in the character of Byomkesh Bakshy.[55] The film was released on 3 April 2015,[56] and failed to perform well in the box office but still received a positive critical reception.[57][58] In September 2013, Rajput began collaborating with Shekhar Kapur for his upcoming project Paani, a film set in the future which showcased a world where wars where being fought over water.[59] The film was initially reported to be starred by Hrithik Roshan and then Vivek Oberoi but finally went to Rajput after Yash Raj Films entered in its co-production and opted for his inclusion.[60] He had reportedly attended workshops with Kapur for 10 months before the project was suspended in 2015 when the Yash Raj Films backed out of it.[61][62] In the aftermath, Rajput ended his contract with production house.[63][64]

In 2011, a biopic on the life of the Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was conceived by Dhoni's manager, Arun Pandey.[65] The project was initially faced with various difficulties including objections from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Dhoni's demand for a large royalty.[66][67] On 25 September 2014, Sushant Singh Rajput was announced as the actor who would play the role of Dhoni in the biopic which was titled M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and directed by Neeraj Pandey.[66][68] The film was centered around the life of the cricketer beginning with his childhood in the city of Ranchi and leading up to the 2011 Cricket World Cup victory for India under his captaincy.[44] Incidentally, Rajput wasn't adept at cricket and had to train regularly in the game for 13 months as well as capture the playing style of Dhoni for his portrayal in the film,[65] he was coached by Kiran More who reportedly trained him in the regimen of a professional sportsperson rather than as an actor.[69] The film was produced by Arun Pandey with Fox Star Studios and released on 2 October 2016.[70] It became the 5th highest grossing Bollywood film of that year.[71] Rajput received critical acclaim for his performance and nominations to a number of prestigious awards,[2] including the Filmfare Awards, the International Indian Film Academy Awards and the winning nomination at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.[72][39][73] He also made a cameo appearance in the comedy film Welcome to New York,[74] which was released on 23 February 2018 and where the lead characters met Rajput but confused him for Mahendra Singh Dhoni.[75]

Rajput with Kriti Sanon at a promotional event for Raabta in Kolkata.

During the release of M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, Rajput in an interview had stated that he was signed up to do five more films; namely Raabta, Takadum, Chanda Mama Door Ke, another biopic of an athlete and a film produced by Dharma Productions featuring Jacqueline Fernandez.[76] Earlier in 2014, reports had emerged that Rajput was being signed in alongside Alia Bhatt for the starring roles in the largest budget production of the producer–directors Homi Adajania and Dinesh Vijan.[77] In an announcement in February 2015, the film titled Raabta, produced by the Vijan owned Maddock Films and co-directed by Adajania and Vijan was publicised where Rajput and Bhatt were in the lead role.[78] Bhatt however decided to opt out of the project in the same year,[79] and the role of the female lead eventually went to Kriti Sanon.[80] Rajput and Sanon later featured in a 2017 T-Series music video of the song named Paas Aao, composed by the duo Armaan and Amaal Mallik.[81] In 2017, he was featured for first time in Forbes India's Top 100 Celebrity list.[82]

The second biopic that Rajput was to feature in was tentatively titled as Murli: The Unsing Hero, where he would play the role of the disabled jawan turned paralympics gold medalist Murlikant Petkar.[83] In June 2016, Rajput along with Parineeti Chopra and Irrfan Khan were also announced as the lead of the Adajania directed film called Takadum with shooting scheduled to begin in October but the project was being put on hold due to issues related to script re-adaptation.[84] Meanwhile, the announcement of Rajput's role in Chanda Mama Door Ke had come in September 2016.[76] In the film which was to be directed by Sanjay Puran Singh, Rajput would have starred alongside Nawazuddin Siddiqui and R. Madhavan and was cast in the role of an astronaut, for which he was even sent to NASA on a training module in 2017.[85] He was also cast as the lead in the spy thriller film Romeo Akbar Walter in 2017,[86] however he quit the project in the same year reportedly causing displeasure to the producer Bunty Walia who had publicised the film with him on the cover.[87][88] Later in December 2017, it was announced that he was signed in by Abhishek Chaubey, the director of Udta Punjab for his next film titled Son Chiraiya, where he would star alongside Bhumi Pednekar.[89]

Raabta was released on 9 June 2017,[90] which subsequently received mixed reviews from critics and ended up a flop in the box office, unable to recover its large production cost.[91] It was a time transcending love story,[92] where Sushant Singh Rajput played the role of two characters who were reincarnations of each other.[93] While the filming was primarily carried out in the city of Budapest, Hungary, in the Indian state of Punjab and in the island country of Mauritius.[94] Earlier in March 2017, Rajput had also began shooting alongside Jacqueline Fernandez for Karan Johar's Dharma Productions film, by then titled as Drive.[95][96] The film was directed by Tarun Mansukhani and was a prequel to the 2014 film Bang Bang!,[95] that had featured Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif.[97] Part of the shooting occurred in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel which was promoted by the Government of Israel as a part of its tourism and diplomatic initiative.[98] The release was initially scheduled for 2 March 2018, but in a February announcement, the date was moved to 7 September 2018.[99] The release was however postponed for a second time with no fixed release date due to creative disagreements between the director Mansukhani and the producer Karan Johar.[100]

Rajput and Sara Ali Khan at the set of Kedarnath post production.

In the meantime in March 2017, Rajput was signed in by the director Abhishek Kapoor and the producer Ekta Kapoor for their film called Kerdarnath.[101] It was a love story set in the backdrop of the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand, where Rajput co-starred with Sara Ali Khan.[102][103] He played the character of Mansoor, a Muslim porter who was also a devotee of Lord Shiva and whose livelihood revolved around the Shiv temple at Kedarnath.[57][104] The shooting of the film began in September 2017 and was set to release by June 2018.[105][106] During the shooting, Abhishek Kapoor who had previously been the director of Rajput's debut film Kai Po Che!, stated that Rajput was in much better form for Kedarnath and expected it to become an even bigger success.[107] The film however soon became embroidered in controversy as the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that it was promoting Jihad by showing an interfaith couple and called for the imposition of a ban on it.[104][108] In the end, the film was banned from screening in 7 out of 13 districts in Uttarakhand and released on 7 December 2018.[109][110] Despite the ban, it became a commercial success,[111] although it didn't completely meet the projected success in the box office.[6] Following the release, it was the second highest grossing among Rajput's starring films after the Dhoni biopic.[112]

On 2 May 2018, Rajput was inducted as a partner in a company named Innsaei Ventures, which was founded on 26 April 2018; following which he was appointed as one of its three directors, the others being Varun Mathur and Saurabh Mishra.[113] Rajput and Mathur were credited as the co-founders and set to make an investment of ₹300 crore (equivalent to ₹323 crore or US$45 million in 2019) in the company.[114] The company was named Innsaei after the Icelandic word for Institution and marketed as working in the fields related to intellectual property and emerging technologies.[115][114] Within a week, he was signed in by NITI Aayog to become a brand ambassador of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform and for the promotion of the BHIM mobile payment app.[116][117] Subsequently, Innsaei Ventures set up a fund of ₹20 crore (equivalent to ₹22 crore or US$3.0 million in 2019) in favour of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform.[118] In the same year, Rajput announced the first creative product of Innsaei Ventures, a 12 biopic series where he would play the roles of various Indian historical characters between the years of 540 BC to 2015 CE.[119][120]

In early 2018, Rajput begun shooting for the film Sonchiriya.[121] It was a historical drama set in the 1970s, where he played the role of a character named Lakhna, a lieutenant in a gang of dacoits; he was in the lead role alongside Bhumi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey and Ashutosh Rana.[57][15] The film was directed by Abhishek Chaubey, produced by Ronnie Screwvala and featured the real life character of Daku Man Singh, played by Bajpayee.[122][123] Released on 1 March 2019,[124] it received a positive critical reception and won a number of awards but failed to become a commercial success.[57] In 2018, he was also signed in by Nitesh Tiwari, the director of the blockbuster film Dangal for his new film titled Chhichhore, whose shooting began in September.[125] It was a romantic comedy where Rajput played the character of Anirudh Pathak,[126] a divorced husband who recounts his college life to his teenage son and opposite Maya, his ex-wife played by Shraddha Kapoor.[57][15] Produced by Fox Star Studios and Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment, the film was released on 6 September 2019,[127] and became the third movie featuring Rajput to gross over ₹100 crore (US$14 million) after PK and the Dhoni biopic.[65]

In an interview in January 2019, before the release of Sonchiriya, Rajput had stated that he was in the talks for 12 other films of which Chanda Mama Door Ke and the biopic of Murlikant Petkar were yet to be finalised.[128] He was to feature in Rifleman, but the film got into legal trouble over copyright issues shortly after its announcement and could not be made.[129] He had opted out of the production of Chanda Mama Door Ke in the previous year citing timing conflict in scheduling for its shooting and had stated that he would produce his own space film through Innsaei Ventures.[130] In September 2019, a second company named Vividrage Rhealtyx was registered with a paid up capital of ₹1 lakh (US$1,400); Rajput became one of the three directors of the company, the others being Rhea Chakraborty and Showik Chakraborty.[131][132] Meanwhile, the long delayed release of the film titled Drive had its premiere finalised and was released directly on Netflix in November 2019, as a cost cutting measure.[133][134][135] On 6 January 2020, Rajput also founded a nonprofit organisation (NGO) named Front India for World Foundation with the stated intent of working towards eradication of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and promotion of better healthcare and sanitation.[132][136] Prior to that, on behalf of one of his fans, he donated ₹1 crore (US$140,000) to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund following the 2018 Kerala floods.[137][138] In 2019, he featured second time in Forbes' annual Top 100 Celebrity list.[139]

Since 2017, Rajput was signed in for the directorial debut of Mukesh Chhabra;[140] Fox Star Studios had employed Chhabra for a Hindi language remake of The Fault in Our Stars, a Hollywood hit film produced by 20th Century Fox.[141] Chabbra had also been the casting director who had first spotted him for Kai Po Che!, which was Rajput's debut film.[142][38] The shooting for the film began on 9 July 2018, in the city of Jamshedpur, Jharkhand.[143][144] During the time of shooting, Rajput had remarked that he shared a great bond with Chhabra and had promised Chhabra that he would appear in his first as well.[142] Based on the novel by the same name The Fault in Our Stars written by the author John Green,[145] the film was initially titled Kizie aur Manny and was scheduled to release in theatres in 2019.[146] Rajput co-starred alongside Sanjana Sanghi and played the character of Manny, a patient of the bone cancer osteosarcoma;[147] the role in the Hindi remake was a reprisal of the role of Ansel Elgort.[148] It also notably featured Saif Ali Khan and musical compositions of A. R. Rahman.[149] The title was later renamed to Dil Bechara and the release date moved to 8 May 2020.[150] The slated release of the film however did not occur due to restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.[151] In the end, it was posthumously released on the streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar and became a record breaker in its first 24 hours viewership, having gathered approximately 95 million viewers.[152] Reportedly, Rajput was in talks a day before his death with a director about a film based on the 2008 Mumbai attacks.[153]