Shekhar Kapur

Known for making movies with intelligent narratives and nuanced performances, award-winning director Shekhar Kapur started his career with the highly acclaimed drama Masoom in 1983. With the science fiction superhero film Mr. India to his credit, the director shot to fame with the National Award-winning biographical film Bandit Queen. The movie was Indias official submission for the Academy Awards in 1995. He gained international recognition for his 1998 biographical movie Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett, which went on to win as many as seven Academy Awards. While he is a renowned film director, he has also acted in a number of movies such as Khanjar, Vishwaroopam and its sequel Vishwaroopam II. The director and actor was honored with Indias fourth-highest civilian award, Padma Shri Award, in 2000.

EARLY LIFE
Born on 6th of December in Lahore, British India, Shekhars father, Kulbushan Kapur, was a renowned doctor, and his mother Sheel Kanta Kapur was the sister of legendary Bollywood actor Dev Anand and directors Chetan Anand and vijay anand. While Shekhar is the couples only son, he grew up with three sisters.

Shekhar completed his schooling from Modern School, New Delhi, and graduated from St. Stephens College with a degree in economics. Following his graduation, he moved to England to study chartered accountancy from the ICAEW Institute. Upon completing his studies, he started working with a multinational oil company in India. He then travelled to the UK in 1970, where he worked as an accountant and management consultant. However, he returned to India to pursue his career in the film industry.

PERSONAL LIFE
Shekhar became close to actress Shabana Azmi with whom he worked with in the Dev Anand film Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974). Their relationship lasted for several years, but things did not work out between them and they eventually parted ways. He then met Medha Gujral, who was assisting him on the sets of Masoom. The two got married in the mid-80s and remained together till 1994 when they sought for a mutual divorce. In 1999, Shekhar tied the knot with actress Suchitra Krishnamoorthy and the couple have a daughter named Kaveri. But his second marriage lasted even shorter than his first as they divorced in 2007.

MOVIE CAREER
As a Director
Shekhar made his directorial debut with the 1983 drama Masoom, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Urmila Matondkar, and Jugal Hansraj in lead roles. The movie about a married woman struggling to accept her husbands illegitimate child went on to win various Filmfare Awards and also garnered immense praise from the audience. After directing the emotional family drama, Shekhar tried his hand at directing a science fiction film Mr. India in 1987. Starring Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Amrish Puri in the lead role, the film is widely held as the most popular in its genre in India. In the film, Anil Kapoor played a street-walking violinist, Arun, who gives shelter to a number of orphaned children. With the help of his scientist fathers invisibility device, he foils the sinister plans of Mogambo and his men in several encounters. After Aruns children get kidnapped by Mogambo, he rescues them from his clutches and also saves the whole of India from destruction. Mr. India was one of the biggest hits of the year and has had a strong impact on popular culture as a whole. The dialogue from the film Mogambo Khush Hua mouthed by Amrish Puri is one of the most popular lines from Hindi cinema. It is still widely used in various forms of media.

With Mr. India, Kapurs stature as a director grew and his next project was a much more ambitious one, the biographical movie based on the life of the dacoit Phoolan Devi, titled Bandit Queen (1994). Shekhars third film traces the rise of a lower caste woman into a revered gang leader after she faces sexual abuse and discrimination from the society. Actress Seema Biswas was cast to play the titular role of Phoolan Devi for which she received heaps of praise for her performance, including the National Award for Best Actress that year. Bandit Queen was a major critical success and was also premiered at the Directors Fortnight Section of the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. It also won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi and Best Costume Design, apart from the Filmfare Award for Best Director, Best Cinematographer and Best Female Debut.

Post Bandit Queen, Kapur became an internationally recognized director, which helped him bag the British film Elizabeth (1998). The movie is a fictional account of the early stages of Queen Elizabeth Is ascension to throne. Backed by Cate Blanchetts solid performance as Queen Elizabeth I, the film was received well by critics and the audience, and was nominated in seven categories at the Academy Awards. It won an Oscar for the Best Makeup and also the BAFTA Awards for the Best British Film, Best Actress,

Elizabeths success made Kapur a director of international repute but his next British film The Four Feathers (2002) didnt live up to expectations. It was panned by critics and was also a commercial failure. The film, based on the novel Four Feathers by A. E. W. Mason, starred Heath Ledger, Wes Bensley and Kate Hudson in lead roles. Kapur then went on to direct a sequel to his 1998 film Elizabeth, titled Elizabeth: The Golden Age in 2007. Cate Blanchett was seen reprising her role in the sequel, which explored the other half of the Queens rule in England. Though it won an Oscar for Best Costume Design, the film could not replicate the success of the 1998 film. It was badly received by the critics and didnt make any impact at the box office either. The director has also directed one short film in the anthology movie New York, I Love You (2008) and another short film Passage (2009). He then directed a documentary film on Sri Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) titled Science Of Compassion (2016) that explores the source of human compassion and creativity.

As an Actor
Kapur, in fact, started his career first as an actor. He debuted with a small role in the film Ishq Ishq Ishq (1974), which was directed by his maternal uncle, Dev Anand, and starred Zeenat Aman, and Shabana Azmi in pivotal roles. He has dabbled as an actor in mainstream commercial cinema like Khanjar (1980) as well art house dramas like Drishti (1990) and Nazar (1991).

While he played a supporting role in Khanjar, the films Drishti and Nazar had him in the lead roles. Drishti, a Govind Nihalani film, revolved around the lives of an estranged couple, who find solace in the company of other people during periods of their marriage, and saw Kapur cast opposite Dimple Kapadia in the lead role. Nazar directed by maverick filmmaker Mani Kaul had Shekhar playing an antique dealer-cum-money lender who marries a 17-year-old orphan despite himself being middle-aged. As he became known as a director in India and abroad in mid-90s Shekhar took a break from acting.

He returned to face the camera with the Kamal Haasan film Vishwaroopam only in 2013, wherein he was cast as a RAW agent named Colonel Jagannath. He reprised his role in its 2017 sequel titled Vishwaroopam 2. As a Producer
Shekhar Kapur has been an executive producer for Mani Ratnams romantic-thriller Dil Se..(1998), the 2002 sex comedy The Guru (2002), and has also produced the documentary film Bollywood: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (2011).