Rajkummar Rao had a small but pivotal part to play in the cult classic ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’. Shamshad Alam's character played a small role in the film that barely got him noticed. However, the actor recently revealed that he was initially supposed to play one of the leads when he was first approached for the film.
Released within months of each other in 2012, ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ is a two-part film directed by Anurag Kashyap. The films starred Manoj Bajpai, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Richa Chaddha, Huma Qureshi, and Piyush Mishra in lead roles. It also featured actors in small roles including Rao, Jaideep Ahlawat, Pankaj Tripathi, Vineet Kumar Singh, Reema Sen, Jameel Khan. Vipin Sharma and Zeishan Quadri.
In a video shared by Netflix India, Rajkummar was interviewed by comedian Zakir Khan and they spoke about the movie among other things. Rajkummar said, “After watching 'LSD ‘(Love Se Aur Dhokha), Anurag sir called me and said I am making a film and come and meet me. So when I met him, there was just a story, rather than a story's structure. And at that time, the film he narrated was Faisal Khan (Nawazuddin) vs Shamshad Alam (Rajkummar). Nawaz and I went to Wasseypur and I had a small tape recorder, which I used to record people there.”
Eventually, Anurag told Rajkummar that he was beginning to write the formal script for the film. “After writing finished 3-4 months later,” Rajkummar recalled, “Anurag sir met me again and told me that my role had become much shorter. But I said no worries sir. He asked me would you still do it and I said of course. I am getting a chance to work with you. And I am glad I did actually.”
However, Rajkummar’s small role in ‘Wasseypur’ did get him noticed by one person. Hansal Mehta cast him in ‘Shahid’ based on that, which fetched Rajkummar his National Award. From there on, the actor saw commercial success as well in films like ‘Kai Po Che’, ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’, and ‘Stree’. His latest film ‘Monica, O My Darling’ was released on Netflix on Friday.
