‘Newton’ director on casting Rajkummar Rao in the film

Amit Masurkar’s ‘Newton’ which released last week after rave reviews at film festivals stars Rajkummar Rao who is getting praise for his performance. Masurkar talks about casting Rao in the protagonist’s role.

“When I wrote Newton, I wasn’t really thinking of anyone honestly. I wrote a draft and I thought no one will make this as I showed it to a couple of studios and they were not very interested as it was a political film. But after Sulemani Keeda released, everyone who approached me wanted to make something similar to a buddy romantic comedy sort of a thing. But when I showed it to Manish Mundra, he said ‘let’s do this film with Rajkummar.’ Immediately, I felt that Raj is the guy. Raj is so much like Newton. So, it was a no-brainer, ” said Masurkar in an interview with Pinkvilla.

About working with Rao, Masurkar also revealed, “Rajkummar is a very intuitive actor. He’s very serious about his work but he’s also a lot of fun. On set, he’s not sitting in the corner and mulling about his role. He participates, he eats with everyone and he has fun. But, the moment he is in front of the camera, he switches on his acting. What I like about him most is that – for this role, he had to wake up at 3:30-4:00 in the morning to get ready. He had to get his hair done because he had to sport curly hair in the film. Before that, he used to do his exercises and reach on the set at 6 am sharp as we used to start shooting. He’s extremely dedicated and he’ll go to any lengths to achieve what he wants to achieve.”

Also starring Pankaj Tripathi and Anjali Patel, ‘Newton’ is produced by Aanand L Rai’s Colour Yellow Productions and also Manish Mundra’s Drishyam Films.