Rajkummar Rao reflects on how 2022 has been for him professionally: ‘Plan to do films my heart says yes to, not for any other reason’

Rao began the year with Badhaai Do, where he played a gay police officer which got him immense love and followed it up with Hit – The First Case where he was tasked with investigating a missing person case. His latest, filmmaker Vasan Bala’s Monica O My Darling, is billed as a neo-noir crime comedy.

During the trailer launch of the film, when asked how does he look back at the year so far, Rajkummar Rao hoped he continues to choose films purely from his heart and not for “any other reason”.

“I feel very fortunate to start my year with such a special film like Badhaai Do. Then in Hit, it was the first time I was doing an action thriller. Monica in itself is such a beautiful film where I got the chance to work with Vasan, Sriram (Raghavan) and Netflix.

“I am very happy with the way it’s going. That’s the plan now. I’m just going to do films I believe in, that my heart says yes to and not for any other reason. Hopefully that streak will continue and I’ll be a part of films that you all will enjoy and I’ll be very proud of,” Rajkummar said.

Monica O My Darling also stars Radhika Apte, Huma Qureshi and Sikander Kher in the lead roles. The film marks Vasan Bala’s third feature directorial after the unreleased Peddlers, the 2018 action-comedy Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota and the short Spotlight in the Ray anthology from Netflix.

Monica O My Darling is also the filmmaker’s first ensemble project but Vasan said filming it wasn’t “maddening”. “Thankfully it wasn’t that because there’s enough madness that we already deal with while making a film. So what we expect is sanity, support and a very healthy collaboration and that’s what I got. It was thrilling to get all of them every day on set and work with them.”

Written by Yogesh Chandekar, Monica O My Darling is set to release on November 11.