K. Ramya Sree
Actor Gajraj Rao, who has won many accolades for his performances in films like Badhaai Ho, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, and Maja Ma, and in web shows like TVF Tripling Season 2 and Masaba Masaba. He will now be seen in the Telugu versions of Zee Theatre’s acclaimed teleplay Gunehgaar. This psychological thriller is directed by Akarsh Khurana and is a part of the South Special bouquet that Zee Theatre has put together for audiences in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Now that he is all set to entertain the Telugu audience, we quickly got in touch with the actor to further let our readers know about the project, his interest in working down south, his character, and more.
Gajraj Rao is a very popular Hindi actor whose story as an actor begins in the nineties in Delhi, where he was very active on stage for almost seven to eight years.
Gunehgaar took him back to those days and reminded him just how much he missed his theater days, and that’s what made him come on board the project. He further shared with us: “Whatever I have learned personally or professionally about acting is through theater. After I came to Mumbai, I couldn’t do theater, though I did watch it and in the last 10 years, I have enjoyed many of Akrash Khurana’s plays. He is a very good director, and Akvarious Productions, his company, is constantly vibrating with creative energy. And as everyone knows, his father, Akash Khurana, is a theater and film doyen. His mother, Meera Khurana, his wife, and his brother are also part of the theatre. This is a brilliant family, and their contribution to Mumbai theater is immense. I would request tell Akash to direct me, even though I was a bit uncertain about stepping on stage after such a long break. So when Akrash called me to offer me a teleplay, which turned out to be Gunehgaar, I was thrilled. And as I am a huge admirer of Akrash’s craft, I immediately said yes. The script, of course, was mind-blowing and it was thrilling to work with Sumeet Vyas and Sweta Basu Prasad. The story has turned out so well, and the response it is getting is also very heartening. I would say, Gunehgaar is one of the most important milestones in my acting career.”
His character, Bansal, in the teleplay that is all ready to be released on July 16 on Airtel Theatre, Dish TV Rangmanch Active, and D2H Rangmanch Active, has so many layers, and you can never tell what is going on with him.
Now that his project is being released in Telugu and Kannada, we asked this Hindi actor to share how South Indian special theater diversifies the content that has universal resonance, and to this he responded, “In India, each state is very rich, culturally. Just take the example of Malayalam cinema, which has amazing universal stories. Kannada cinema is evolving as well. Telugu, of course, with hits like RRR is shining globally. And when I saw the translation of Gunehgaar in Kannada and Telugu, I was stunned by its amazing quality. I feel it is a fantastic initiative to dub a teleplay that was made in Hindi, and in other regional languages. It is like taking the audiences on a new journey where they enjoy a story from another milieu in their own language. This way, the theater also gets to grow and expand its reach.”
The actor further continued, “After the arrival of OTT platforms, the regional barriers have been dismissed. Now anybody can watch content from any state of India, any part of the world, or even relish films and shows in Spanish and Korean. We all have to accept one irrefutable fact: the discipline and work ethic of South-Indian industries are matchless. I worked with Mani Ratnam sir around 20 years ago on Dil Se. His way of working and the discipline that I saw on his sets, it’s unparalleled. Telugu cinema is now a global force, and the way it focuses on different cinematic techniques and cinematography is amazing.”
During the interview, Gajraj Rao confessed that he can’t wait to collaborate with directors from the south. “Even during the pandemic, I got an opportunity to work in a Malayalam film. But unfortunately, because of date issues, I could not do that part, but I am looking forward to working on Kannada films after watching Kantara. It is an amazing film and has single-handedly changed the scenario of the Kannada film industry. Before Kantara I had seen Humble Politician Nograj, which was a wonderful satire. I would love to be a part of the regional resurgence that we are seeing and work in these wonderfully creative industries,” expressed the star.
He is a renowned theater artist too, and explaining what it was like to explore theater in a new format, he shared, “In Cinema and Web shows, you don’t have longer cuts. The stakes are smaller. What I mean by that is that you just take a master shot, and then you move on to close-ups. The treatment of the teleplay, however, was almost theatrical. The shots were very long, so you had to learn the lines, and it felt so good because there was no break in the performances. We can’t say that it was exactly like theatre because the dynamics of the stage are different and there are no retakes. In a teleplay, retakes are possible, but still, the whole treatment and even the set were very close to what we experienced on stage. I am very happy with what I learned as an actor from this format.”
Concluding the interview by sharing a few words about Gunehgaar, he said, “It is a thriller where the lives of three people—their past, present, and future—are entangled with each other. And that’s the fun part because, in the beginning, the audience will not be able to find anything common between them, but then they will slowly discover that they are interconnected with each other because of an incident in their past that affected them in different ways.”
