You Heard It First On Front Row: Rajkummar Rao On Criticism For His Accent In The White Tiger

Rajkummar Rao is that rare thing– a bona fide star and a National Award-winning actor. The range and depth of his performances from his gut-wrenching Shahid to the sweetly deluded Aloo in Ludo, speak volumes more than we ever could. During a live conversation on FC Front Row, (the first of the three live events for this month) "Commandments of Making it as an Actor with Rajkummar Rao", the acclaimed actor spoke, for the first time, about the reactions to his performance in The White Tiger. 

"I read in a couple of reviews about the whole 'accent' thing. I was in a dilemma, I couldn't get it… I used to ask Ramin (Bahrani), and Priyanka (Chopra), I used to ask my sound engineers… because I was really scared as I was trying something new, and Ramin really wanted me to have something new and not the complete American accent. I used to ask them about every line, 'Are you sure if this is working? I'm not sure, this is not my language', and they would say, 'It works perfectly, don't worry'… But when I saw it and read in a couple of reviews, I started thinking about it, like maybe it's not really there. But what could I have done? I asked people who knew the language and I prepared, I had my formal training in the accent with a teacher. I have two-three really close friends who are really honest who told me 'You could have not had it also and nothing would have changed… But Ramin wanted me to have one so… But I learnt a couple of things from The White Tiger also… I would still rather work harder next time than play safe."

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