Gajraj Rao

Some Lesser Known Facts About Gajraj Rao 

• Gajraj Rao was born in a lower-middle-class family in Rajasthan and was brought up in Delhi.

• His father used to work in the Indian Railways. He used to live in a railway colony with his parents in Delhi. In an interview, he said,

I learned various dialects while I was living in the railway colony. There would be someone from Himachal Pradesh, someone from Punjab, or a region in Uttar Pradesh. I was fascinated by these dialects and kept practising them. Probably, that was the beginning of the actor in me who suddenly finds himself being called out by name. It also helped that the family would undertake yearly trips to Dungarpur in Rajasthan. We would either get off in Ratlam or Ahmedabad, travelling by Deluxe or Sarvodaya Express.”

• At the age of 16, he joined a theatre group. He attended the famous theatre group, ‘Act One’ with the film actors, Manoj Bajpayee and Ashish Vidyarthi.

  

• In an interview, he shared how he had developed an interest in theatres, he said,

When I was a student at Delhi University, a friend introduced me to the theatre. I watched Sandhya Chhaya at Shri Ram Centre For Performing Arts, Mandi House. I was blown by the magic of theatre. There were about 100 people in the audience, and two young actors played senior citizens on stage. The lighting, the music… everything impressed me  I slept very late that night because the experience kept replaying in my mind. I was drawn to the theatre and my trips to Mandi House became more frequent. I was hooked.”

• Later, he continued his theatre work and doing odd jobs simultaneously.

• Thereafter, he started working at the tailor shop, ‘Iqbal Tailors’ in Delhi. He then worked in a garment company of one of his friend.

• His interest in literature helped him in getting a job as a freelance writer in Navbharat and Hindustan Times.

• Later, he got an offer to write scripts for the anchors of Doordarshan.

• The Indian television producer, Siddhartha Basu, noticed his work and offered him a show based on audience interaction.

• The turning point in his life came when he met the Bollywood director and writer, Pradeep Sarkar. Pradeep offered him to write scripts for his ad films. Gajraj agreed to it and worked with him for a few years.

• Rao was introduced to the famous director Shekhar Kapur by his friend Tigmanshu Dhulia. Shekhar offered him the role of Ashok Chand Thakur in the Bollywood film ‘Bandit Queen’ (1994).

  

• In 2003, Gajraj, along with his friend Subrat Ray, opened an ad commercial production house, ‘Code Red Film.’ Gajraj has acted and directed many popular ad films.

• Some of the ad films made under his production house are Maruti Suzuki, Samsung, Cadbury, Reliance Foundation, HUL, McDonald’s, Flipkart, Taaza Tea, and Procter & Gamble.

• His company has received awards at Adfest Asia, Promax Singapore, The Cup, NYF, and Asia Pacific Advertising.

• He has appeared in many popular Bollywood films, like Dil Se (1998), Aks (2001), Dil Hai Tumhaara (2002), Black Friday (2007), and Aamir (2008).

  

• An award-winning ad film; depicting the significance of respecting the National Anthem of Indian was made under his production house,’ Code Red Films.’

• He has appeared in many web-series, including ‘A Day With RD Sharma’ (2016), ‘F.A.T.H.E.R.S.’ (2017), ‘Tech Conversations with Dad’ (2018), and ‘TVF Tripling Season 2’ (2019).

  

• He has directed a short video named ‘Rorito: Write the New.’ He has also produced documentaries like ‘Budhia Singh: Born to Run’ (2016) and ‘The Tribal Scoop’ (2018).

  

• He came into the limelight with the Bollywood film ‘Badhaai Ho’ in 2018. He played the character of Jeetendra Kaushik (father of Ayushmann Khurrana) in the film.
  

• He appeared in Bollywood films like ‘Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan’ and ‘Lootcase’ in 2020.

  

• In an interview, he shared some instances of his journey as an ad filmmaker, he said,

Nitesh Tiwari gave me my second advertisement. Someone said I was a newcomer, but he liked me. A three-minute film for Sonata in Tamil (for Lintas, then headed by Balki) did very well. I worked extensively with noted cinematographer V Manikantan. He’s a great influence in my journey.”

• He has received many awards for his film ‘Badhaai Ho’ 2018.

  

• In ‘The Kapil Sharma Show,’ he revealed that he calls his wife every 30 minutes. He further said,

‘I saw a European film once. There is a married couple in that film. The memory of one of the two goes away. After this, the other partner feels that the two have never shared anything worth remembering from each other, so how to remember the partner in such a situation. After watching the film, I decided that from now on, whatever will happen in my life will keep my wife updated.”