Ayushmann Khurrana and Rajkumar Rao are very similar actors—they love to push the envelope when it comes to their roles. Rajkumar studied at FTII, and Ayushmann is a trained theatre actor. Ayushmann started out with Vicky Donor, a taboo subject in India. Rajkumar debuted with Love Sex Aur Dhoka. In Ashwini Iyer’s Bareilly Ki Barfi, they are paired in parallel lead roles opposite Kriti Sanon.
Rajkumar plays Pritam Vidrohi, “a naughty guy who is simple but loud. He’s a ruffian, he’s funny and has different personality traits. I have two sides to my character.”
Ayushmann performs a grey character for the first time. “I’m Chirag Dubey, who has shades of grey. He has his vulnerable moments. He has selfish motives and is aggressive and a bully. He tries to exploit his friend and realises that it’s not good,” says Ayushmann.
For Rajkumar, “if the role is exciting, the duration doesn’t matter. Queen got me a lot of recognition.”
Bareilly Ki Barfi is set, well, in small town Bareilly. “I travelled a lot to small towns when I was doing theatre in Karanataka. I was also doing radio and was constantly in touch with the middle class as they are the ones who call up a radio jockey,” says Ayushmann.
Rajkumar is from Gurgaon, which was not a developed town then. “I stayed in Haryana because I was into martial arts and I would go for tournaments. The way they speak, the styling, the camaraderie, there’s a lot of bonding between everyone in the village,” he explains.
They say making friends in the industry is not easy. “We organically become friends when we are working on a film. I haven’t made any friends in the industry, but Shoojit Sircar, Aditya Chopra and John Abraham have been my mentors. Now that I have worked with Rajkumar, we can become friends. He is like me, no pretensions, a great actor who changes himself in every film,” says Ayushmann.
Rajkumar chips in. “We became good friends, but we can’t keep in touch as we are busy with our careers, films and shoots. We may not meet every week, but we talk whenever we have time. My girlfriend Patralekha is my best friend.”
Rajkumar is looking forward to films such as Amit Masurkar’s Newton, Hansal Mehta’s Omerta and Alt Balaji’s web series Subhash Chandra Bose. “For Bose’s role, I shaved off my hair and put on 20 kg. I’m reading books on Bose, and read his autobiography to understand him. Omerta is based on terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh’s life. Newton is about a a rookie government clerk sent on a mission.”
Ayushmann will be seen in Shubha Mangala Savadhan, a film based on erectile dysfunction. “It’s an antithesis for Vicky Donor,” he smiles.