Sushant Singh Rajput was a popular Indian actor who worked in both Hindi Films and television.He became well-known because to the Bollywood film “M.S. Dhoni- the untold story,” which is a biography of the captain of the Indian cricket team. He received many honours, appeared in numerous Indian films as both a lead and supporting actor, and appeared in two daily television series. Additionally, he made two appearances in the Forbes Indian Celebrity Top 100.
His early life and education
The son of Usha Singh and Krishna Kumar Singh, Sushant was born in Patna, Bihar, on January 21, 1986. His father was a technical official (since retired) with the Patna-based Bihar State Handloom Corporation. The youngest of his four sisters, he went by the moniker “Gulshan”. Cricket player at the state level is his sister, Mitu Singh.
He attended the Patna-based “St. Karen High School” throughout his early years. Following the passing of his mother in 2002, his family relocated to Delhi, where he finished high school at the “Kulanchi Hansraj Model School.”
He was a talented student who qualified for many engineering entrance examinations, won the National Olympiad in Physics, and placed seventh in the Delhi Common Entrance. But he once admitted that he wasn’t interested in engineering and instead aspired to become an astronaut or a fighter pilot in the Air Force. He was passionate about Shah Rukh Khan and had a keen interest in Bollywood. However, under pressure from his family, he enrolled at Delhi College of Engineering to pursue a mechanical engineering bachelor’s degree.
His acting career in television
Sushant’s professional trajectory is like to a movie unto itself. He began taking dance lessons in Shaimak Davarak’s classes while he was a college student. After a few days, he began acting courses with theatrical director “Barry John” and found it enjoyable. He opted to pursue a career in art and performance in his fourth year of engineering and dropped out of school.
After finishing his engineering degree, he moved to Mumbai and was given the opportunity to appear in the 2006 song “Dhoom Again,” which was used in the movie Dhoom 2 and the closing performance of the Commonwealth Games. He initially joined Nadira Babbar’s theatre company “E.K. Jute” and worked for two years there, taking on numerous odd jobs and little roles.
He was seen by the casting staff of “Balaji Telefilms” while working for the “Prithvi Theatre” and was invited to an audition. The second starring role, “Preet Singh Juneja,” was one he was able to land. However, he was killed off in the middle of the drama and then returned at the very end as the ghost that his family was looking for. His performance left a lasting impact, and the show’s producer, “Ekta Kapoor,” called him back and offered him the lead role of “Manav Deshmukh” in her next production, “Pavitra Rishta,” which Zee TV broadcasted despite the channel’s wishes. Ankita Lokhande, his co-star who played Archna Deshmukh in the programme, played the show’s female lead, and it was established as the great hit.
In 2010, he won his first award as best actor in Indian Television Academy Award. He acted in the show for two and half years and left the show in 2011, but while working in the show, he won many shows and was also featured in the last episode in 2014. He also worked in some reality shows as; in 2010, he joined the show “Zara Nachke Dikha” and gave an emotional and memorizing performance in his mother’s memory on Mother’s day special. In the same year, he joined the show “Jhalak Dikhla Ja” and ended up as runner-up in the show and was getting popular when he proposed his co-star Ankita In the middle show.
When he left the Pavitra Rishta set in 2011, he immediately travelled to the United States to pursue a career in film. In the well-known Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut, and Adhyan Suman-starring Bollywood film “Raaz 2,” he served as the assistant director.
Sushant as Bollywood Actor
He accepted a request to attend the auditions for “Mukesh Chabhra’s movie Kai Po Che” in 2011 while enrolled in a filmmaking degree. Along with Rajkumar Rao and Amit Shade, he portrayed the starring character of Ishaan Bhatt, a district-level cricketer who encountered several challenges due to politics. This film was based on the novel The Three Mistakes of My Life by well-known Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat, which was about three friends who perished in the Gujarat riots and earthquakes of 2001 and 2002. Due to his outstanding work in the film, Shushant was nominated for the Film Fare Award for best debut actor.
Before signing “Kai Po Che“, Sushant was signed for Rajkumar Hirani’s film “P.K.” in which he played the supporting role of Anushka Sharma’s boyfriend. Later, he also signed the Yash Raj banner’s film “Shudh Desi Romance” this movie was a comedy film that went “sleeper hit”, and he played roles against Vaani Kapoor and Parineeti Kapoor. At the same time, P.K. was India’s most grossing movie in 2014. In 2013, Sushant signed one more movie with Yashraj Films named Detective Byomkesh Bakshy. This film was a fail, but because of its suspense action- thrill concept, it made a different image of Sushant as one of the finest actors in India. Also, to promote the movie, Sushant made a cameo in the T.V. show “CID” which was a police crime drama and aired on “Sony T.V.”. In 2014, Shushant started working on the new project “Paani”, which was a movie based on future water issues. Still, in 2015, the project was suspended because Yashraj films walked out, and this was the point where Sushant ended his contract with the publication house.
In the year 2011, Indian Captain Mahindra Singh Dhoni’s manager Arun Pandey decided to create a biopic movie on his life, but because of numerous issues even from Dhoni (demand of high royalty) and BCCI’s (Board of Council Cricket in India) side but in 2014 Sushant was signed as the lead (Dhoni) in the movie. For this movie, Sushant learned Cricket from coach Kiran More for 13 months as he wasn’t that amazing in the game and needed to adopt Dhoni’s Style. The movie was focused on the starting days of Dhoni’s life while he was trying to get his place in Indian Cricket time and his amazing performance as an Indian Cricket team captain in the world cup 2011. This movie was released on 2nd October 2016 and became India’s 5th high grossing Bollywood movie. This movie was a plus to his career. He got nominated in many awards for his memorable performance in the movie, such as the film fare Award, the International Indian Film Academy Awards, and a captivating nomination at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. In 2018, he made a cameo in the film “Welcome to New York”, in which the actor confused him with M.S. Dhoni.
He was cast in five additional films while he was filming Dhoni, including Raabta, Takadom, Chanda Mama Door Ke, and a biography on Indian athletes. The first one was Raabta, starring Alia Bhatt. However, Alia eventually declined the project, and Kriti Sanon was cast as the film’s female lead instead. However, this film was such a fiasco that it failed to even recoup its production costs. Nevertheless, Kriti and Sushant were recast in 2017 for the song “Pass Aao,” which was performed by Armaan and Amaal Mallik. He was listed among the top 100 Indian celebrities in Forbes India in 2017.
The second biography he agreed to was “Murli- The unsung hero,” which was based on the Paralympic gold medalist and disabled “Jawan” titled “Murlikant Petkar.” Takdhom was the title of the film starring Irrfan Khan and Parineeti Chopra. Nevertheless, the film’s filming was put on hold due to the rewriting of the script. After a few days in 2016, he began working on the film “Chanda Mama Door Ke” alongside R. Madhvan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, for which he received training at NASA in 2017. Later that year, he agreed to star in the spy thriller “Romeo Akbar Walter,” but he left the project due to disagreements with the producer.
In March 2017, Shushant started working on a movie named “Drive” by Dharma Production along with Jacqueline Fernandez, which was a prequel of “Bang Bang” started by Hritik Roshan and also signed a movie produced by Ekta Kapoor and directed by Abhishek Kapoor named as “Kedarnath”. Sushant worked very hard for the movie and was expecting it to be a big hit, but because of so much controversy and even called for a ban by “Bhartiya Janta Party” as according to them, this movie was promoting “love jihad”, but after facing numerous issues. Two postpones on the release date, the final movie released on 7th December 2018 but wasn’t that big hit as it was supposed to be, but it was still the second-highest grossed movie of Sushant’s career.
2018 saw the beginning of Sushant’s “Sonchiriya” filming alongside Bhoomi Pednekar, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranvir Shorey, and Ashutosh Raina. He portrayed Lakhan in a periodic drama that was launched in March 2019 and received favourable reviews from critics. Meanwhile, Sushant signed his last film, “Chichore,” a comedy-romance with a strong social message that was based on college life. This movie had multiple stars and was a huge hit with the younger audience. The movie was named the finest Hindi film featured in the “National Film Award.”
Since 2017, Sushant has been cast as the male lead in the Hindi adaptation of the Hollywood film “The defect in our stars,” which was Mukesh Chabbra’s directorial debut. This film, based on the same-titled John Green book, was slated for release in 2019. However, the film’s title later changed to “Dil Bechara,” and the release date was moved to 2020. The COVID 19 epidemic prevented it from being released on schedule, and it was subsequently released after his passing. Despite this, the film broke records by being the most watched movie in a 24-hour period.
Let’s have a little discussion regarding his personal life.
Fans and the media have always been interested in Sushant’s personal life, particularly his relationships. They began dating while filming Pavitra Rishta, when he publicly proposed to his co-star Ankita. When they began living together in 2012 after secretly getting married, they were once more in the news, though both spouses denied it. Sushant announced in 2016 that they will marry in style in December, but neither of them stayed together till then. Ankita revealed to the public in 2021 that Sushant wanted to focus on his work and that their relationship had terminated after a few years.
Sushant’s relationships with many actresses kept him in the limelight even after they ended. When he began shooting on Raabta in 2017, he was rumoured to be dating Kriti Sanon, however that was subsequently revealed to be only a rumour and dismissed by both actors. He was once more in the news that year when he defended Padmavat producer Rajput Karni Saini.
Later in 2018, Sara Ali Khan, an actress, and Sushant were said to be dating each other. Neither of them responded to the rumours, and they continued to be apart. However, in 2019, Sushant was allegedly seen with Rhea Chakraborty (popular Bollywood actress).
After his passing, Rhea agreed that they were seeing each other, Sushant trusted Yoga and wasn’t ready to start taking antidepressants. Sushant wasn’t telling his father about the bride when he planned to get married in 2021, according to his father.
Shushant, who was previously interested in astronomy and astrophysics and has a library of 125 books on physics, started reading literature relating to those subjects while filming “Chanda Mama Door Ke” aside from his love life. As a voracious reader who was also interested in cognitive science and behavioural economics, he purchased a number of additional books.
His work and beginnings as an entrepreneur
Varun Mathur and Saurabh Mishra are the other two directors of the business “Innsaei Ventures,” which Sushant joined as a partner in May 2018. He was also hired by NITI Aayog within a week to promote the BHIM mobile payment software and serve as the brand ambassador of “Women Empowerment Platform.” 20 crores was the amount that Inner Ventures chose to allocate to the Women Empowerment Platform. Sushant revealed the first project for his company in 2018: a 12-part biopic series focusing on prominent Indian historical figures from 540 to 2015 C.E. Sushant joined another firm called Vividrage Rhealtyx in September 2019. He is one of the company’s three directors, along with Rhea Chakraborty and Showik Chakraborty.Sushant established Front India for the World Foundation in January 2020, an NGO (Non-profit Organization) that fights against hunger, poverty, and malnutrition. On behalf of one of his followers, Sushant gave one crore to the Chief Minister Relief Fund in response to the 2018 Kerala floods. Sushant was on Forbes’ annual top celebrities list in 2019 for the second consecutive year.
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