After many of his films followed the OTT route last year, Rajkummar Rao is excited to be back on screen with Roohi. Also starring Varun Sharma and Janhvi Kapoor, Roohi is scheduled to open in theaters on March 11. Here, Rao plays a village simpleton named Bhawra who falls in love with a woman possessed by a spirit. Rao has already had success with this genre at the 2018 Stree and hopes to find gold once again.
In a conversation with indianexpress.com, Rao talked about the universe of Dinesh Vijan’s horror comedy, which started with Stree, working with Janhvi Kapoor and the global success of The White Tiger.
Raj shared how he made sure that Bhawra and Vicky (Stree) didn’t look similar. “It was fun to work on Stree at that time, a horror comedy, first of its kind, and then go back to that world and play a different character. For me, I wanted to play Bhawra in a way that he didn’t resemble Vicky de Stree’s audience. That’s why it was a challenge for me to make it look and feel different. I had to maintain a different speech pattern, I dyed my hair, my style is very different from Stree ”, he shared.
The actor Trapped shared that producer Dinesh Vijan wants to create a horror comedy universe and with Roohi, he is starting to build the same. As these films belong to the same universe, it is possible that the two characters of Rao may someday appear together in a film. Provoking this possibility, Newton’s actor said: “Dinesh has a bigger plan to transform this into a universe where you will see Bhawra meeting Vicky, that would be exciting to see. They can also come back together in the same film. However, Raj remained silent about his likely appearance in Varhed Dhawan’s Bhediya, which also appears to be part of the universe of Dinesh Vijan’s horror comedy.
Roohi also stars Janhvi Kapoor and, like many stars, she has also faced accusations of nepotism since her debut in Dhadak. Speaking about his talented co-star, Rao said: “Janhvi is a very talented actress, we have seen her grow in every film, from Dhadak to Roohi. She genuinely loves what she does. From the comments we’re putting online, I think people want to see the talent on the screen, the response we’re getting is great, so I don’t see any problem with that. “
With films being released in theaters again, the pressure on box office numbers is likely to return. But Raj believes that people “want to invest their money in the right movie, they want to go and have a good experience”. He added: “if the film is good, people will watch it”.
The White Tiger, where Rao played a key role, has just received two nominations at BAFTA 2021. Speaking about the global success of the Netflix film, actor Omerta said: “It’s great! We all knew we were doing something special, I was really excited to work on The White Tiger, just to have the opportunity to work with someone like Ramin (Bahrani), I have been a huge admirer of his work. And now, the kind of response you got from the global audience is phenomenal, it’s impressive
Rajkummar Rao recently involved Badhaai Do with Bhumi Pednekar and also has Hum Do Humare Do on his kitten. Roohi will open in theaters on Thursday, March 11.