Ram Gopal Varma Profile

Ram Gopal Varma (born 7 April 1962) is an Indian film director, screenwriter and producer. Varma has directed, written and produced films across multiple genres—psychological thrillers, underworld gang warfare, politician-criminal nexus, and musicals—and in multiple languages—Telugu and Hindi.

Watching films endlessly is the only training he has had in his life. Ram Gopal Varma has a vision and belief about film making which he diligently puts into practice. He has been in the film industry for over a decade, and is known more for his idiosyncrasies and less for the large range of varied films he has made. He has never undergone any apprenticeship with a filmmaker; he has neither assisted any director nor done a course in filmmaking. He was an avid movie buff who graduated into movies by chance.

Shiva (1989) was his first film as director and Rann (2010) is his most recent one. He gained recognition in Hindi cinema, also known as “Bollywood”, with Rangeela (1995). The next film he directed was Satya (1998), which won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film. Satya, together with his 2002 film Company (which he directed and which won seven Filmfare Awards) and 2005 film D (which he produced), form an “Indian Gangster Trilogy”. Other successful films Varma directed include Kshana Kshanam (1991), Kaun (1999), Jungle (2000), Bhoot (2003), Sarkar (2005) and Sarkar Raj (2008). He introduced south indian super star, four time national award winner Mohanlal into bollywood.

The film sank like a stone. It was a jolt for Ramu and he realised that he wasn’t above the film and its script. And then came the movie on Mumbai’s underworld named Satya with a nondescript cast. The movie created ripples and set a new trend in cinema. Experimentation is a regular feature of Ram Gopal’s movies. Next came a snappy chiller, Kaun, starring Urmila (again!), Manoj Bajpai and Sushant. A film devoid of songs, with only three characters and shot entirely indoors. In between, he co-produced Dil Se and burnt his fingers. Then came the autobiographical Mast, based on his crush on Sridevi and no marks for guessing who the leading lady with Aftab Shivdasani was The film didn’t do well and Ramu was back again with his production of Shool directed by his assistant E.Niwas. Now the prolific director has hit the marquees with Jungle, loosely based on the brigand Veerappan starring Fardeen Khan, Sunil Shetty and Urmila.

His maiden venture was Shiva  starring Nagarjuna in 89, a movie based on the frustrations and aspirations of a student leader. He immediately won national acclaim for this hard-hitting film. Next came a horror flick Raat, a chilling suspense drama, with Revathi and after that the prelude to Satya i.e. Drohi which didn’t fare too well at the box office. A couple of Telugu films later came the biggest blockbuster of his career, Rangeela. It catapulted him to instant acclaim with the street smart Munna (Aamir Khan), and the starlet Urmila with whom he appears to share a special rapport. The success created history for A. R. Rahman the music director, Manish Malhotra the dress designer and Urmila, the sultry siren. The success seemed to go to his head and he made a racy thriller called Daud with hunk Sanjay Dutt and Urmila wearing the briefest mini skirt in Bollywood.

Early years

Ram Gopal Varma Penmetsa was born in Hyderabad to Krishnam Raju Penmetsa and Satyavathi. Varma was not a good student in school and used to skip classes regularly, something that strained his relationship with his family, particularly his father.

Varma is a civil engineer by profession and graduated from the V.R.Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Even during this period, Varma remained a film buff. He would skip classes often and go and watch films instead – 8-10 films a week. He would watch the same film repeatedly “just to watch certain scenes which interested him.” According to him, that is how he learned film direction..

After graduation, Varma tried entering the film industry, but couldn’t manage it. He then put his dreams on the backburner and decided to go to Nigeria to make some money. It was at this moment that he visited a video rental library in Hyderabad. He loved the idea and decided to start one of his own, all because of his craze for films.

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