Gajraj Rao

After completing his schooling, he joined the theatre group ‘Act One’ at the age of 16 along with the actors, Manoj Bajpayee and Ashish Vidyarthi.

At the start of his acting career, he used to do theatres and odd jobs for livelihood simultaneously. His first job was in a tailor’s shop, ‘Iqbal Tailors’ in Delhi. Later, one of his friends offered him a job in a garment company. He was good in literature, so, he started working as a freelance writer for Navbharat and Hindustan Times. Soon, he got an opportunity to write anchor’s script for Doordarshan channel. While he was working as a scriptwriter, he met the Indian television producer, Siddhartha Basu, who offered him to work in a show based on audience interaction. He then met the Bollywood director and writer, Pradeep Sarkar, which was a turning point in his life. He started working with him as a writer in ad films and then moved to Mumbai along with Pradeep Sarkar. Later, his friend, Tigmanshu Dhulia, introduced him to the director, Shekhar Kapur. Shekhar offered him a role in his film ‘Bandit Queen’ (1994) in which he played the character of Ashok Chand Thakur.

In 2003, he opened his own advertisement production company, ‘Code Red Films,’ along with his partner Subrat Ray. Gajraj has acted and directed many popular TV commercials.