Rajesh Tailang

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rajesh Tailang 

• Rajesh Tailang is an Indian actor, director, poet, and writer.

• He was born and brought up in Rajasthan, and his grandfather Pt. Govind Lal Goswami was a well-known tabla player and a haveli sangeet exponent.
  

  

  

  

• He shared an interesting incident, he said that in his childhood, he clicked a photo with Amitabh Bachchan’s cut out and wanted to become like him. Later, he acted with the legendary Bollywood actor, Amitabh Bachchan in a film.

  

• When he was 13 years old, he did his first acting project. After playing the lead role in the Doordarshan TV serial, ‘Dhai Akshar’ (1989), he had two options either to continue acting or to join the National School of Drama. He decided the second option and joined the NSD, New Delhi.

• In the NSD, the veteran Bollywood actor, Naseeruddin Shah was his teacher, and the Indian TV actor, Anup Soni was his batchmate.
  

  

  

• He has acted in various theatre plays and is a well-known name in Indian theatre plays.

  

• In an interview, he shared when he started developing an interest in acting, he said,

My father used to take me to the projector room where I have watched a lot of films during my childhood. That’s where my interest in cinema started developing. And then my uncle took all of us kids to perform a play in the colony. That was when I acted for the first time. Then, when I was 14 years old, I attended the summer workshop of NSD which is for kids. After that, I did a couple more workshops and then performed in some plays. Then I joined the amateur theatre. So, that’s how it happened.”

• After graduating from the National School of Drama, New Delhi, he acted in the famous TV serial, ‘Shanti’ in which he played the role of Manu. In an interview, he shared how he got a role in ‘Shanti,’ he said,

 After passing out from NSD, I was looking for work. One day, in the NSD washroom, I met a man who asked me if I was an actor. He said they were making a TV show which was India’s first daily show. He was one of the directors of Shanti – Partho Mitra. Partho belonged to Delhi and asked me to meet him at his place in CR Park. Then he called me to Mumbai for an audition at UTV’s office. I went to Mumbai and auditioned. I remember it was raining heavily that day. I gave my audition fully drenched. But, I got the role.”

• He has appeared in various Hindi films, like ‘Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa’ (1998), ‘Dev’ (2004), ‘Mangal Pandey: The Rising’ (2005), ‘Siddharth’ (2013), ‘The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’ (2015), ‘Phantom’ (2015), ‘Mukkabaaz’ (2018), ‘Commando 3’ (2019), and ‘Panga’ (2020).

• He has directed many episodes of the Hindi TV series, ‘India’s Most Wanted’ (1999) aired on Zee TV.

• He has featured in two Hindi short films, ‘Mast Qalandar’ (2015) and ‘Zoya’ (2016).

•  He has acted in many popular Hindi web-series, like ‘Mirzapur’ (2018), ‘Selection Day’ (2018), ‘Delhi Crime’ (2019), and ‘Bandish Bandits’ (2020).

  

• He has also worked as a dialogue writer for various theatre plays and films.

• In 2013, he was nominated for Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards for the film, ‘Siddharth.’

• He shared in an interview that once he decided to quit acting in films, he said,

There was a gap in between from 2007 to 2012. I had stopped acting for films and cameras during those five years. I moved to Delhi and had stopped working because of the kind of roles I was getting, I wasn’t happy with that. I decided that I will do theatre and fully concentrate on that. Along with that, I had started teaching at NSD. Also, I wrote some 18 plays during that time. And then I traveled with my plays all around the world during that period. He has a YouTube channel, ‘YouTube talkies’ in which he uploads short films.”

• He is a dog lover and has a pet dog, Inca.

  

• He is a nature lover, in an interview, he said,

Acting is my first love and wildlife is second. I go to forest tours, watch a lot of documentary on wildlife and read a lot about nature conservation et cetera. It is one of the subjects that constantly fascinate me, apart from acting.

• He released a poetry book, ‘Chaand Pe Chai’ in 2020.