Sushant Singh Rajput (21 January 1986 – 14 June 2020) was an Indian actor best known for his work in Hindi cinema. Rajput is the recipient of several accolades, including a Screen Award and three Filmfare Award nominations. He was featured twice on Forbes Indias Celebrity 100 list, and was regarded as one of the most talented and versatile actors of his generation.
Rajput began his acting career after dropping out of his engineering course at the Delhi College of Engineering and entering the theatre industry in Mumbai. He moved on to feature in Hindi television serials, his debut show was the romantic drama Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil (2008), followed by the lead role in the soap opera Pavitra Rishta (2009–2011). He made his film debut with the film adaptation Kai Po Che! (2013) which became a critical and commercial success. He followed up with his starring roles as a tourist guide in the romantic comedy Shuddh Desi Romance (2013) and the titular detective in the mystery film Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015). Rajput's highest-grossing releases came with a supporting role in the satire PK (2014), and from the title role in the sports biopic of Mahendra Singh Dhoni. For his performance in the latter, he received his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor.
He earned acclaim for his performances in several notable films, including Kai Po Che! (2013), Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! (2015), M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016), Kedarnath (2018), Sonchiriya (2019), and Chhichhore (2019).
Rajput died by suicide at his home in Bandra, Mumbai, in June 2020, aged 34. Various controversies surrounded his death. The Narcotics Control Bureau claimed Rajput had been using various people to obtain drugs since 2018 and filed abetment charges against them. Abetment to suicide charges were filed and the case was handed to the Central Bureau of Investigation, who filed a closure report on 22 March 2025 ruling out any foul play. His last film, Dil Bechara (2020), was released posthumously on the streaming platform Hotstar.
Early life and education Sushant Singh Rajput was born in Patna in the state of Bihar to Krishna Kumar Singh and Usha Singh. His father is a retired technical officer and worked at Bihar State Handloom Corporation in Patna, and his mother was a homemaker. Rajput was the only son and the youngest of five siblings and had the nickname Gulshan. One of his four sisters, Mitu Singh, was a state-level cricket player. He studied at St. Karen's High School in Patna. His family moved to Delhi following his mother's death in 2002 where he completed his schooling for intermediate studies in the Kulachi Hansraj Model School.
Rajput was reportedly an avid reader who was deeply interested in astrophysics and won the National Olympiad in Physics. He secured admission in the Delhi College of Engineering (later renamed Delhi Technological University) to pursue a Bachelor of Engineering degree in mechanical engineering. According to Rajput, he did not have any interest in engineering but his family gave him no option which left him dissatisfied. He instead wanted to become an astronaut and later an air force pilot but was also interested in Bollywood, being a fan of Shah Rukh Khan.
Career 2006–2011: Early career and television During his course at the Delhi College of Engineering, Rajput enrolled himself in Shiamak Davar's dance classes. Soon afterward, he also began attending acting classes under the theatre director Barry John. 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. Rajput was subsequently called for an audition and cast as a second lead in the television series Kis Desh Mein Hai Meraa Dil in 2008. He had secured the role of Preet Singh Juneja, the stepbrother of the lead named Harshad Chopda and entered the show in its seventh episode. 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, reportedly against the wishes of the hosting channel, Zee TV.
In Pavitra Rishta, Rajput was cast as Manav Deshmukh who was an "ideal son and husband" and co-starred along with Ankita Lokhande. The role was reportedly a breakthrough for him and for which he won various television awards, 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. On the Mother's Day special episode, the team dedicated a performance to Rajput's mother who had died. 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.
2012–2015: Film debut and Yash Raj Films
In 2011, Rajput was spotted by Mukesh Chhabra, the casting director of Kai Po Che!, who invited him for an audition. He was in the process of enrolling for a course in filmmaking at Stanford University but decided to accept the offer. He was subsequently cast in the role of Ishaan Bhatt, a district-level cricketer who was a victim of politics in the selection fraternity and one of the three leads, along with Rajkummar Rao and Amit Sadh. 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. The film was a romantic comedy, where Rajput played the character of Raghu Ram Sitaram, a tour guide who fell in love with a woman on the way to his own marriage, it featured Parineeti Chopra and Vaani Kapoor. 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". The film PK was later released in 2014 and became the highest grossing Indian film.
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. Before the release, Rajput made a special appearance in the police crime drama CID in the character of Byomkesh Bakshy. 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. Incidentally, Rajput wasn't adept at cricket and had to train regularly in the game for 13 months as well as capture the playing style of Dhoni for his portrayal in the film, he was coached by Kiran More who reportedly trained him in the regimen of a professional sportsperson rather than as an actor. 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, including the Filmfare Awards, the International Indian Film Academy Awards and the winning nomination at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. 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.