Rajeev Pillai

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rajeev Pillai

• Dr Rajeev Pillai is an Indian model, actor, cricketer, and dentist. He represented Kerala Strikers, one of the cricket teams of the Celebrity Cricket League, from 2012 to 2017.

• In childhood, he developed an interest in cricket. He used to focus more on cricket than his studies.

• As he was good at playing cricket in his college days, various other educational institutions used to ask him to play cricket for their teams by making his fake college IDs.

• After completing his graduation, he shifted from India to London in UK, and there, he played cricket for the Malayali cricket league. After returning to India, he did professional training in cricket at Britannia Roger Binny Cricket Academy, Bangalore.

• Rajeev then worked as a dentist at a clinic in Cochin.

• During the cricket matches of the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), he got to know many senior South Indian actors. In one of the matches, his teammate and actor Mohanlal shared that a surprise would be given to the player who played the best. In that match, Pillai’s team won after he scored 75 runs from 63 balls. He then got a role in the Hindi film of the Indian film director Priyadarshan and that was the surprise announced by Mohanlal.

  

• Rajeev started his modelling career with the fashion show of the Indian fashion designer Chaitanya Rao.

• On the ramp, he has displayed the clothing collection of many Indian fashion designers like Digvijay Singh, Varun Bahl, Arjun Khanna, and Karan Johar.

• Rajeev has walked the ramp in various fashion shows such as Lakmé Fashion Week, Couture Week, and Kochi Fashion Week.

  

• He started his acting career with Malayalam films. He has appeared in many Malayalam films like ‘City of God’ (2011), ‘Kaashh’ (2012), ‘D Company’ (2013), ‘Oru Muthassi Gadha’ (2016), ‘Who’ (2018), and ‘Sumesh and Ramesh’ (2021).

  

• He was listed in the “Kochi Most Desirable” list published by The Times of India for four consecutive times from 2012 to 2016. ^[8]The Times of India

• He has also acted in a few Hindi films including ‘Guru Dakshina’ (2015), ‘Shakeela’ (2020), ‘Bruno’ (2021), and ‘Satyameva Jayate 2’ (2021).

  

• He received Special Jury Award for the Malayalam film Oru Muthassi Gadha at Asiavision Movie Awards in 2016.

  

• Rajeev has acted in various Tamil films like ‘Aambala’ (2015), ‘Aviyal’ (2016), ‘7 Naatkal’ (2017), and ‘Coffee with Kadhal’ (2022).

  

• In 2018, he postponed his marriage to help the rescue team during the Kerala floods 2018.

  

• In 2022, he was roped in two Telugu films ‘Amigos’ and ‘Hidimbha.’

• Rajeev has also acted in a few short films such as ‘Yellow Pen’ (2014; Malayalam), ‘Athidi’ (2019; Malayalam), and ‘Bruno’ (2021; Hindi).

• He is a dog lover, and he has posted a few pictures with dogs on his social media account.

  

• He is an avid fitness enthusiast. In his daily workout routine, he practises jiujitsu, capoeira, karate, boxing, and CrossFit under his trainer Midhun Jith.

  

• Rajeev has been featured on the covers of magazines like FWD Life and Fast Track.

  

• Whenever he gets time from his busy schedule, he plays badminton and football. He also enjoys watching cricket on the television.

• Rajeev is good friends with the former Indian cricketer S. Sreesanth. Some media sources, even said that they were cousins. However, Rajeev denied it and said they were only friends. Later, Rajeev’s name was also dragged into the spot-fixing racket in 2013. In an interview, Rajeev denied all such rumours. ^[9]The Hindu