A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Rao started his career by making a small, uncredited appearance as a newsreader in Ram Gopal Varma’s 2010 political thriller Rann but was first noticed in Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010), an anthology of three stories. A lead role in horror film Ragini MMS (2011) and supporting characters in Bejoy Nambiar’s crime thriller Shaitan (2011), Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur-Part 2 (2012) and Reema Kagti’s suspense thriller Talaash: The Answer Lies Within followed though Rao gained significant acclaim and notice only for Abhishek Kapoor’s buddy Drama film Kai Po Che! (2013), co-starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Amit Sadh, based on Chetan Bhagat’s 2008 novel The 3 Mistakes of My Life.

In 2013, Rao appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama Shahid, for which he won the national award for best actor, and later also collaborated with the director on his drama film Citylights (2014). Supporting roles in female-centric films like Queen (2014) and Dolly Ki Doli (2015) led to his breakthrough phase in 2017, when he appeared in survival drama Trapped, romantic comedy Bareilly Ki Barfi, directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and black comedy Newton, India’s official entry to the Academy Awards that year. In 2018, he joined the ₹100 crore club with his horror-comedy Stree.

In recent months, T-Series is known for horror comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, made on a budget of ₹90 crore, that earned over ₹180 crore in box-office collections—a rare profitable Hindi film in recent months. Ek Villain Returns, which released mid-last year, just about recovered its investment. It has also backed productions such as Thank God (starring Sidharth Malhotra, Ajay Devgn and Rakul Preet Singh), Vikram Vedha (a remake of the Tamil hit by the same name, starring Saif Ali Khan and Hrithik Roshan) and Rohit Shetty’s Cirkus. There’s much to follow over the next few months—from Adipurush, a multilingual mythological featuring Prabhas, to Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s directorial Animal with Ranbir Kapoor.