Ram Gopal Varma
Born	Penmetsa Ram Gopal Varma (1962-04-07) 7 April 1962 (age 50) Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India
Occupation	Film director, producer and writer
Years active	1989–present
Spouse	Ratna (divorced)
Website
rgvzoomin.com

Ram Gopal Varma also known as RGV (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, road movies, horrors, politician-criminal nexus, and musicals in multiple languages.

He gained recognition in Bollywood with the Hindi film, Shiva premiered at International Film Festival of India in kolkata^[1] and Rangeela (1995). The next film he directed was Satya (1998), which won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film, and was show cased among the Indian panorama section, at the 1998 International Film Festival of India.^[2] Satya, together with his 2002 film Company (which he directed and which won seven Filmfare Awards) and the 2005 film D (which he produced), form an "Indian gangster trilogy".

Other acclaimed films that Varma directed include Kshana Kshanam (1991), Gaayam (1993), Anaganaga Oka Roju (1997), Prema Kadha (1999), Kaun (1999), Jungle (2000), Bhoot (2003), Sarkar (2005), Sarkar Raj (2008), Rakta Charitra (2010) Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju (2011) and Dongala Mutta (2011).^[3]

Early years[link]

Ram Gopal Varma was born in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India to Krishnam Raju Penmetsa and Suryavathi Raju Penmetsa.

In an interview to Tehelka, Varma talked about his relationship with his parents and the reasons behind his decision to become a filmmaker.

From my parents’ perspective, I looked like a useless bum. It was the truth. I had no objective. I was just fascinated by people, so I used to study their behaviour. I was most fascinated by the bullies in my classroom. They were like gangsters for me. They had the guts to push around people, do things I couldn’t— perhaps did not even want to do myself. But I’d want a friend like that (laughs). I used to adulate them like heroes. That was my first touch with anti-socialism. Over a period of time, I developed a low-angle fascination for larger than life people. I was always a loner — not because I was unhappy, but because I live away from myself, not just others. I like to study myself — the way I am walking, talking, behaving. My constant obsession with studying myself and other people is perhaps the primary motivation for me to be a filmmaker.^[4]

Varma completed BE in civil engineering from V.R. Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. Even during this period, Varma remained a film buff, through his uncle. Varma would skip classes often and watch films instead. He would watch the same film repeatedly "just to watch certain scenes which interested him."^[5] According to him, that is how he learned film direction.

After a brief stint as a site engineer for Krishna Oberoi hotel in Hyderabad, he put his dreams on the back burner 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 at Ameerpet in Hyderabad, through which he slowly developed connections with the film world.^[6] Without being successful as a fourth assistant director in B. Gopal's film Collector Gari Abbai, Varma directly ventured into film direction, in Nagarjuna's 1989 movie Shiva.^[7]

Career in Telugu cinema[link]

Ram Gopal Varma in the sets of a Telugu film

Before Varma started his career in the Telugu film industry, he lingered on the sets of films such as Raogaarillu and Collectorgari Abbai. His father was a sound recordist at Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad which is owned by Akkineni Nageswara Rao. Varma managed to meet Nagarjuna and narrated a scene to the actor which impressed him.^[8] The result of their collaboration was a film on the criminalization of student politics — Siva. It was a blockbuster with Varma demonstrating his technical expertise and storytelling skills. The success of the film in Telugu led to a Hindi remake with similar success.^[9]

Varma's next film was Kshana Kshanam with Venkatesh and Sridevi which got him noticed by Bollywood critics. It was dubbed into Hindi as Hairaan. Then he made films such as Raatri and Antham. While Gaayam with Jagapathi Babu and Anaganaga Oka Roju with J.D. Chakravarthy were successful, Govindha Govindha with Nagarjuna and Sridevi proved to be a moderate success at the box office.^[10] During this period, Varma produced films such as Money and Money Money and was the screenwriter for Mani Ratnam's Tamil movie Thiruda Thiruda.

Career in Hindi cinema[link]

While Varma's first successful Hindi film was the remake of Siva. His next film was Drohi. What really put the spotlight on him was the blockbuster Rangeela.^[11] The film won Filmfare Awards for Rahman and Shroff. According to Varma, it was dedicated to actress Sridevi.^[12] His next film Daud (1997), however, sank without a trace.^[9]

In 1998, Varma was an executive producer for Dil Se.., directed by Mani Ratnam and starring Shahrukh Khan, Manisha Koirala and Preity Zinta. The film won the NETPAC Award for Special Mention at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as two National Film Awards and six Filmfare Awards.^[13]

Indian gangster trilogy[link]

In 1998 came his masterpiece, the critically acclaimed Satya, based on the Mumbai underworld. A script written by Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla, music by Vishal Bharadwaj and Sandeep Chowta, acclaimed performances by J. D. Chakravarthy, Manoj Bajpai and Urmila Matondkar, and Varma's directorial and technical brilliance, contributed to a landmark. The film won six Filmfare Awards, including the Critics Award for Best Film.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002 came his greatest commercial as well as critical success, Company, again set against the backdrop of the Mumbai underworld, in which he cut off the song-and-dance sequences, common in Bollywood films at the time. It was based on the real-life underworld organization, the D-Company.^{[citation needed]} It won seven Filmfare Awards and earned him a Filmfare Best Director Award nomination. Mohanlal debuted in Bollywood with this film.^{[citation needed]}

A prequel to Company was made in 2005: D, produced by Varma and directed by Vishram Sawant. Satya, Company and D are together considered an "Indian gangster trilogy".^{[citation needed]} Satya and Company, in particular, were cited by British director Danny Boyle as influences on his Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), for their "slick, often mesmerizing portrayals of the Mumbai underworld", their display of "brutality and urban violence", and their gritty realism.^[14][15][16]

Experimental films[link]

During the years between his trilogy, from Satya in 1998 to D in 2005,^[17] Varma experimented with different film genres. In 1999, he directed Kaun, a suspense thriller set entirely in one house and featuring only three actors, and Mast, a subversion of the Hindi cinema's masala genre.^[18] In 2000, he directed Jungle, set entirely in a jungle, for which he was nominated for the Star Screen Award for Best Director.

Following the success of Company in 2002, Varma's next film as director was Bhoot (2003), a psychological horror film, which was a major success. It starred Ajay Devgan and Urmila Matondkar, who earned a number of awards for her performance. Varma himself was nominated for the Filmfare Best Director Award for the film.

Following the success of Bhoot, Varma produced two other experimental films: Sriram Raghavan's Ek Hasina Thi (2003), a psychological thriller, and Shimit Amin's Ab Tak Chhappan (2004), a film about an inspector in the Mumbai Encounter Squad famous for having killed 56 people in police encounters.^[19] In 2005, Varma was nominated for the Zee Cine Award for Best Producer of the Year.^{[citation needed]}

Later films[link]

Varma's next film as director was Sarkar, released in June 2005, starring Amitabh Bachchan and his son Abhishek. Amitabh played the character of Sarkar who is a self-righteous and powerful businessman cum social worker, while Abhishek played his son. Sarkar was a loose adaptation of Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather.^[20] Sarkar went on to become a critically acclaimed box office hit.^{[citation needed]}

In 2006, his next film as director was Shiva, which premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival, where a retrospective featuring several of his previous movies was staged. Alongside Shiva, the festival screened his earlier successful films Company, Ek Hasina Thi and Ab Tak Chhappan. While these three were praised,^[19] Shiva was a critical and commercial failure. In 2007, he directed Nishabd, followed by the ambitious Sholay remake, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, as well as Darling. All three were critical and box office disasters.^{[citation needed]}

He was written off by the media and public until June 2008, when he reclaimed, to some extent, his lost reputation with his much hyped venture, Sarkar Raj, a sequel to Sarkar; it was a average and met with good reviews. The primary cast featured Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan reprising their roles from the prequel alongside Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Supriya Pathak, Tanisha Mukherjee and Ravi Kale reappeared in their respective roles from Sarkar. Unlike Sarkar, which was loosely adapted from The Godfather, Sarkar Raj had an original plot.

Phoonk (2008) was another horror film movie which was met with mixed to negative reviews. However, the film was a success compared to its minuscule budget.^{[citation needed]} Agyaat, which released on 7 August 2009, was again a commercial as well as critical failure. Next was Rann, a film about the media. It had Amitabh Bachchan, Kannada actor Sudeep, Ritesh Deshmukh and Paresh Rawal. Released on 29 January 2010, it was praised by some critics but was a commercial disaster. Then he began the promotion works for Phoonk 2, a sequel of Phoonk, which was released on April 16, 2010.

Next came Rakta Charitra, in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi languages. The movie was based upon the faction backdrop of the Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh. As it lasted about five hours, the film was released in two parts, with a gap of three months. It depicts the life of slain political leader Paritala Ravindra, played by Vivek Oberoi, with Tamil actor Surya Sivakumar, enacting the role of Maddelacheruvu Suri, Shatrughan Sinha, playing N. T. Rama Rao. Radhika Apte and Priyamani star in other pivotal roles. The film released to a good opening following Varma's clever pre-release marketing using the controversy surrounding the main characters to his advantage. A fortnight after the release, Maddelacheruvu Suri was shot fatally. Though the movie could not get a good reputation in Hindi and Tamil, it gained positive reviews in Telugu and the critics said "RGV is back".

Varma's latest release had comedian Sunil as the lead. The film was titled Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju (Story Screenplay Direction Appalraju in English). It is said to be a satire on the Telugu film industry mainly targeting directors. One song covered almost all directors like Raghavendra Rao, E.V.V., Kodi Ramakrishna, B. Gopal, S.S. Rajamouli, Sreenu Vaitla, Puri Jagannadh, Vinayak and Boyapati Seenu. On 25 February 2011, Varma reportedly filed a complaint against a Telugu news channel in Hyderabad.^{[citation needed]}

Varma has announced another horror film titled Amma 3D. It will be the first 3D horror film made in India and is reported to have Ritesh Deshmukh in a significant role.^{[citation needed]}

Varma has roped in Amitabh Bachchan for the lead role in his yet-to-be-filmed Department, the plot of which shall revolve around the internal politics of the police department. He has been quoted saying that this film may be considered as "the other side of Company." Sanjay Dutt and Rana Daggubati are reportedly going to play supporting roles. It is a much anticipated collaboration of Sanjay Dutt with the director after their earlier venture Daud.^{[citation needed][21]}

Autobiography[link]

Varma wrote an autobiography titled Na Ishtam, which discusses his thoughts, opinions and ramu style philosophy.'Naa Ishtam' was released on December 2010) at Taj Banjara, Hyderabad. Vijayawada MP and RGV's friend Lagadapati Rajagopal launched the book.

Awards[link]

Filmfare Awards

• Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie - Satya (1998)
• Filmfare Best Story Award - Rangeela (1995)

Filmfare Awards South

• Filmfare Best Director Award (Telugu) - Siva (1989)

Nandi Awards

• Nandi Award for Best Director - Siva (1989)
• Nandi Award for Best Director - Kshana Kshanam (1991)
• Nandi Award for Best Director - Gaayam (1993)
• Nandi Award for Best Director - Prema Kadha (1999)^[22]

Bollywood Movie Awards

Bollywood Movie Award – Best Director

• Satya (1998)
• Jungle (2000)
• Company (2002)
• Bhoot (2003)

Filmography[link]

As director[link]