Patralekhaa says she had seen ‘LSD’ and initially found Rajkummar Rao ‘creepy’

New Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) Actor Patralekhaa says she was hesitant to shoot a music video with Rajkummar Rao as she found him “creepy” after watching his performance in Dibakar Banerjee’s “Love Sex Aur Dhokha”.

Patralekhaa dated Rao for over 10 years before tying the knot with the “Stree 2” star in November 2021.

The actor, who has been receiving praise for her performance in Anubhav Sinha’s series “IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack”, opened up about her first meeting with Rao during an interview with Human of Bombay.

“I had just seen LSD, his first film. After two-three days, one of my school friends, who was studying at FTII, called me and said, ‘Could you do this video for me. It’s a music video, and I am calling this other actor called Rajkummar. He was just in LSD.’

“I said, ‘Ruksana, no, I am not coming because I think he is very creepy and I was scared’,” Patralekhaa said recalling the actor’s role of a creepy boyfriend in the Dibakar Banerjee-directed 2010 movie.

The actor said her friend gave her assurance that nothing will happen to her, suggesting she could also bring her sister Parna for the shoot.

“I was like, ‘Okay, let’s see.’ I made my sister sit between me and Raj, and they started chit-chatting. I was feeling weird because he was that creepy guy from that movie. So, I was pinching her, and said do not talk to him.

“And eventually, it was a bit awkward because the ride was also long from Mumbai to Pune.”

When Rao asked her about her work, she told him about the advertisement she had done, including one for Tata Docomo.

“And the moment I said that, I saw there was some shift. And as the story goes, he had seen that particular ad and he was like, ‘I wanna marry this girl’,” she said.

While for the music video, Patralekhaa said she spent three days with Rao and had a shift in her perception about him.

“He was just a different human being, someone who loved his art so much, and was so passionate about his work. It was such a rarity, and I just couldn’t stop falling in love with him.

“I was like, ‘Oh my god, this man is all about his work and passion and there is so much integrity and depth to him.’ Back then, when I was doing audition rounds, everybody was doing this either to become richer or to become famous, to have those many cars. But he was this guy who was just doing this for the love of his art,” Patralekhaa said.

After the music video, Patralekhaa and Rao worked together on Hansal Mehta’s 2014 film “CityLights” and web series “Bose: Dead/Alive”.