2006–2011: Early career and television During his course at the Delhi College of Engineering, Rajput enrolled himself in
Shiamak Davar's dance classes. Rajput later stated that he found the experience to be liberating and wanted to continue doing it forever. He featured as a background dancer in the
Dhoom Again song of
Dhoom 2 and in
Aishwarya Rai's performance at the closing ceremony of the
2006 Commonwealth Games. In 2006, he dropped out of his engineering course during his fourth year to begin a career in arts and performance. He moved to
Mumbai, took up odd jobs and small roles alongside working in the theatre industry. Rajput eventually joined
Nadira Babbar's theatre group called the
Ekjute in which he remained for two and a half years. He was spotted by a casting team of
Balaji Telefilms while he was working at the
Prithvi Theatre. The character was killed early in the show, but due to popularity among viewers was brought back in the series finale as a spirit looking on as his family celebrated coming out of difficult times. The performance had made an impression on the producer
Ekta Kapoor who vouched for him to be cast as the lead in another series
Pavitra Rishta, In
Pavitra Rishta, Rajput was cast as Manav Deshmukh who was an "ideal son and husband" and co-starred along with
Ankita Lokhande. including his first award for best actor in the
Indian Television Academy Awards 2010. He also won three major television awards in the categories of best male actor and most popular actor. In 2010, he joined the dance reality show
Zara Nachke Dikha in its second season as part of the
Mast Kalandar Boys team. Later in the same year, he also took part in the fourth season of another dance competition reality show called
Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa and was paired alongside the choreographer Shampa Sonthalia; they emerged as the runners-up of the season. Rajput continued to act in
Pavitra Rishta from its first airing in 2009 till his exit in 2011, having played the part of the protagonist of the series for two and a half years at the time of his exit. He had stated that he intended to move to the
United States to study filmmaking and had already gained experience behind the scenes in the film
Raaz 2, where he was an
assistant director. Rajput made a later reappearance in the final episode of
Pavitra Rishta in 2014 after gaining critical acclaim in
Bollywood. He was in the process of enrolling for a course in filmmaking at
Stanford University but decided to accept the offer. The film was directed by
Abhishek Kapoor and based on the
Chetan Bhagat novel called
The 3 Mistakes of My Life, which dealt with the life of three friends affected by the
2001 Gujarat earthquake and the
2002 Gujarat riots. It was released in 2013 and became a critical and commercial success. Rajput received a nomination for the
Filmfare Awards in the category of best debut actor for his performance in the film. Before the release of his debut film
Kai Po Che!, Rajput was signed in by
Rajkumar Hirani for a role in the
Aamir Khan-starrer satirical drama called
PK. In the film, he was cast as the boyfriend to
Anushka Sharma's character of a journalist. He also entered into a deal with
Yash Raj Films beginning with the starring role in the film
Shuddh Desi Romance.
Shuddh Desi Romance was released in 2013 and became a
sleeper hit. Following the release of his first two films, Rajput was described by the veteran director
Shekhar Kapur as "one of the most inspiring young actors to emerge out of India" and was occasionally referred to as the "next
SRK". In June 2013, Yash Raj Films and
Dibakar Banerjee Productions announced the joint production of
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! with Sushant Singh Rajput in the starring role. Rajput began working on the new project following the release of his second film
Shuddh Desi Romance. The film was a
mystery action-thriller featuring Byomkesh Bakshi, a fictional detective originally created by the Bengali writer
Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. Dibakar Banerjee, the director of the film and the IP rights holder of
Byomkesh Bakshi stories had signed him in to play the part of the protagonist. The film was released on 3 April 2015, and failed to perform well in the
box office, but received positive critical reviews. In September 2013, Rajput began collaborating with Shekhar Kapur for his upcoming project
Paani, a film set in the future that showcased a world where wars were being fought over water. The film was initially reported to be starred by
Hrithik Roshan and then
Vivek Oberoi but finally went to Rajput after Yash Raj Films entered in its co-production and opted for his inclusion. He had reportedly attended workshops with Kapur for 10 months before the project was suspended in 2015 when the Yash Raj Films backed out of it. In the aftermath, Rajput ended his contract with the production house.
2016–2017: Dhoni biopic, Raabta and Kedarnath In 2011, a biopic on the life of the
Indian cricket team captain
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was conceived by Dhoni's manager, Arun Pandey. The project was initially faced with various difficulties including objections from the
Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and Dhoni's demand for a large royalty. On 25 September 2014, Sushant Singh Rajput was announced as the actor who would play the role of Dhoni in the biopic which was titled
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and directed by
Neeraj Pandey. The film was centered around the life of the cricketer beginning with his childhood in the city of
Ranchi and leading up to the
2011 Cricket World Cup victory for India under his captaincy. The film was produced by Arun Pandey with
Fox Star Studios and released on 2 October 2016. It became the 5th highest grossing Bollywood film of that year. Rajput received critical acclaim for his performance and nominations to a number of awards, He also made a
cameo appearance in the comedy film
Welcome to New York, which was released on 23 February 2018 and where the lead characters met Rajput but confused him for Mahendra Singh Dhoni. at a promotional event for
Raabta During the release of
M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, Rajput in an interview had stated that he was signed up to do five more films; namely
Raabta,
Takadum,
Chanda Mama Door Ke, another biopic of an athlete and a film produced by
Dharma Productions featuring
Jacqueline Fernandez. Earlier in 2014, reports had emerged that Rajput was being signed in alongside
Alia Bhatt for the starring roles in the largest budget production of the producer–directors
Homi Adajania and
Dinesh Vijan. In an announcement in February 2015, the film titled
Raabta, produced by the Vijan owned
Maddock Films and co-directed by Adajania and Vijan was publicised where Rajput and Bhatt were in the lead role. Bhatt however decided to opt out of the project in the same year, and the role of the female lead eventually went to
Kriti Sanon. Rajput and Sanon later featured in a 2017
T-Series music video of the song named
Paas Aao, composed by the duo
Armaan and
Amaal Mallik. In 2017, he was featured for first time in the
Forbes Indias
Top 100 Celebrity list. The second biopic that Rajput was to feature in was tentatively titled as
Murli: The Unsung Hero, where he would play the role of the disabled
jawan turned
Paralympics gold medalist
Murlikant Petkar. In June 2016, Rajput along with Parineeti Chopra and
Irrfan Khan were also announced as the lead of the Adajania directed film called
Takadum with shooting scheduled to begin in October but the project was being put on hold due to issues related to script re-adaptation. Meanwhile, the announcement of Rajput's role in
Chanda Mama Door Ke had come in September 2016. He was also cast as the lead in the
spy thriller film
Romeo Akbar Walter in 2017, however he quit the project in the same year reportedly causing displeasure to the producer
Bunty Walia who had publicised the film with him on the cover. Later in December 2017, it was announced that he was signed in by
Abhishek Chaubey, the director of
Udta Punjab for his next film titled
Sonchiriya, where he would star alongside
Bhumi Pednekar.
Raabta was released on 9 June 2017, which subsequently received mixed reviews from critics and emerged as a flop in the box office, unable to recover its large production cost. It was a time transcending love story, where Sushant Singh Rajput played the role of two characters who were reincarnations of each other. While the filming was primarily carried out in the city of Budapest,
Hungary, in the Indian state of
Punjab and in the island country of
Mauritius. Earlier in March 2017, Rajput had also begun shooting alongside Jacqueline Fernandez for
Karan Johar's Dharma Productions film, by then titled as
Drive. The film was directed by
Tarun Mansukhani and was a prequel to the 2014 film
Bang Bang!, Part of the shooting occurred in the city of
Tel Aviv,
Israel which was promoted by the
Government of Israel as a part of its tourism and diplomatic initiative. The release was initially scheduled for 2 March 2018, but in a February announcement, the date was moved to 7 September 2018. The release was however postponed for a second time with no fixed release date due to creative disagreements between the director Mansukhani and the producer Karan Johar. In the meantime in March 2017, Rajput was signed in by the director Abhishek Kapoor and the producer Ekta Kapoor for their film called
Kedarnath. It was a love story set in the backdrop of the
2013 floods in Uttarakhand, where Rajput co-starred with
Sara Ali Khan. He played the character of Mansoor, a Muslim porter who was also a devotee of
Lord Shiva and whose livelihood revolved around the
Shiv temple at Kedarnath. The shooting of the film began in September 2017 and was set to release by June 2018. During the shooting, Abhishek Kapoor who had previously been the director of Rajput's debut film
Kai Po Che!, stated that Rajput was in much better form for
Kedarnath and expected it to become an even bigger success. The film however soon became embroidered in controversy as the
Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that it was promoting Jihad by showing an
interfaith couple and called for the imposition of a ban on it. In the end, the film was banned from screening in 7 out of 13 districts in
Uttarakhand and released on 7 December 2018. Despite the ban, it became a commercial success, although it didn't completely meet the projected success in the box office.
2018–2020: Entrepreneurial work and later career on the set of
Kedarnath (2018) On 2 May 2018, Rajput was inducted as a partner in a company named Innsaei Ventures, which was founded on 26 April 2018; following which he was appointed as one of its three directors, the others being Varun Mathur and Saurabh Mishra. Rajput and Mathur were credited as the co-founders and set to make an investment of in the company. The company was named Innsaei after the
Icelandic word for Institution and marketed as working in the fields related to
intellectual property and
emerging technologies. Subsequently, Innsaei Ventures set up a fund of in favour of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform. In the same year, Rajput announced the first creative product of Innsaei Ventures, a 12 biopic series where he would play the roles of various Indian historical characters between the years of 540 BC to 2015 CE. In early 2018, Rajput began shooting for the film
Sonchiriya. It was a
historical drama set in the 1970s, where he played the role of a character named Lakhna, a lieutenant in a gang of
dacoits; he was in the lead role alongside Bhumi Pednekar,
Manoj Bajpayee,
Ranvir Shorey and
Ashutosh Rana. Released on 1 March 2019, it received a positive critical reception and won a number of awards but failed to become a commercial success. It was a
romantic comedy where Rajput played the character of Anirudh Pathak, a divorced husband who recounts his college life to his teenage son and opposite Maya, his ex-wife played by
Shraddha Kapoor. and became the third movie featuring Rajput to gross over after
PK and the Dhoni biopic. In an interview in January 2019, before the release of
Sonchiriya, Rajput had stated that he was in the talks for 12 other films of which
Chanda Mama Door Ke and the biopic of Murlikant Petkar were yet to be finalised. He was to feature in
Rifleman, but the film got into legal trouble over copyright issues shortly after its announcement and could not be made. He had opted out of the production of
Chanda Mama Door Ke in the previous year citing timing conflict in scheduling for its shooting and had stated that he would produce his own space film through Innsaei Ventures. In September 2019, a second company named Vividrage Rhealtyx was registered with a paid up capital of ; Rajput became one of the three directors of the company, the others being
Rhea Chakraborty and Showik Chakraborty. Meanwhile, the long delayed release of the film titled
Drive had its
premiere finalised and was released directly on
Netflix in November 2019, as a cost cutting measure. On 6 January 2020, Rajput also founded a
nonprofit organisation (NGO) named Front India for World Foundation with the stated intent of working towards the eradication of poverty, hunger and malnutrition and promotion of better healthcare and
sanitation. Prior to that, on behalf of one of his fans, he donated to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund following the
2018 Kerala floods. In 2019, he featured the second time in Forbes' annual
Top 100 Celebrity list. Since 2017, Rajput was signed in for the directorial debut of Mukesh Chhabra;
Fox Star Studios had employed Chhabra for a
Hindi language remake of
The Fault in Our Stars, a
Hollywood hit film produced by
20th Century Fox. Chabbra had also been the casting director who had first spotted him for
Kai Po Che!, which was Rajput's debut film. During the time of the shooting, Rajput had remarked that he shared a great bond with Chhabra and had promised Chhabra that he would appear in his first as well. the film was initially titled
Kizie aur Manny and was scheduled to release in theatres in 2019. Rajput co-starred alongside
Sanjana Sanghi and played the character of Manny, a patient of the bone cancer
osteosarcoma; the role in the Hindi remake was a reprisal of the role of
Ansel Elgort. It also notably featured
Saif Ali Khan and musical compositions of
A. R. Rahman. The title was later renamed to
Dil Bechara and the release date moved to 8 May 2020. The slated release of the film however did not occur due to restrictions imposed during the
COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, it was posthumously released on the
streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar and became a record breaker in its first 24 hours viewership, having gathered approximately 95 million viewers. The director Uday Singh Gauri claimed after Rajput's death that he was in talks with him about a film based on the
2008 Mumbai attacks. == Personal life ==