Ram Gopal Varma (Telugu: రామ్ గొపాల్ వర్మ, Hindi: राम गोपाल वर्मा), born April 7, 1962, is a Filmfare Award-winning Indian film director, writer and producer.
Varma has directed, written and produced movies across multiple genres - psychological thrillers, underworld gang warfare, politician-criminal nexus and musicals; and in multiple languages - Telugu and Hindi. Shiva (1989) is his first film as director and Phoonk (2008), his most recent one.
Some of today's finest directors, script writers, composers and actors have at some point or the other worked with Varma, particularly Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpai, A.R.Rahman, Anurag Kashyap, Jaideep Sahni, Madhur Bhandarkar, Puri Jaganath and Sriram Raghavan.
Varma was born in Hyderabad to Krishnam Raju and Suryamma. Varma was a bad student in school and would skip classes regularly, something that strained his relationship with his family, particularly his father. In an interview to Tehelka, Varma talked about that phase of his life, his relationship with his parents, and the reasons behind his decision to become a filmmaker-
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 bunk 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.
Varma started his film career in the Telugu film industry as assistant director for the films Raogarillu and Collectorgari Abbai. His father was a sound recordist at Annapurna Studios, Hyderabad which is owned by Akkineni Nagarjuna. One day, with the help of S. Gopal Reddy, who was a regular visitor of his video library, Varma managed to meet Nagarjuna on the sets of a film and narrated a scene to the actor which impressed him so much that Varma's dream of becoming a director came true. The result of their collaboration was a film on the criminalization of student politics - Shiva. The film was a blockbuster with Varma demonstrating his technical expertise and story-telling skills. The success of the film in Telugu led to a Hindi remake with similar success.
Varma's next film was Kshana Kshanam, another Telugu blockbuster. Then came a lean patch with films such as Raatri / Raat and Antham / Drohi. Gaayam was a moderate success, and Govinda Govinda, not so much. During this period, Varma also produced films such as Money and Money Money, and wrote the script for the Mani Rathnam film Thiruda Thiruda.
Varma then moved to Bollywood and started his own production company, Varma Corporation Limited (which later became the Factory), to produce and direct Hindi films, while continuing to direct (Anaganaga Oka Roju, Deyyam and Prema Katha) and produce (Gulabi and W/O V.Varaprasad) the occasional Telugu film.
While Varma's first successful Hindi film was the remake of Shiva, the film that really put the spotlights on him was the blockbuster Rangeela. With great acting from the lead trio of Aamir Khan, Jackie Shroff and Urmila Matondkar, a fantastic soundtrack by composer A.R.Rahman (this being his first original score for a Hindi film), and with Varma at the helm, it was no surprise that this romantic musical drama was a runaway success. The film won Filmfare Awards for Rahman and Shroff.
His next film Daud sank without a trace.
Then came his masterpiece, the critically acclaimed Satya, a film based on the Bombay underworld. A script written by Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla, music by Vishal Bharadwaj and Sandeep Chowta, a power house performance by Manoj Bajpai as Bhiku Mhatre and Varma's technical brilliance contributed to a film that was a landmark. The film earned Varma his first and only Filmfare Award - for Best Movie (Critics).
His most successful movie is Company, again set against the backdrop of the Mumbai underworld, in which he cut out song and dance sequences commonplace in Bollywood films. His next film as director was Sarkar and released in June 2005, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan. Amitabh Bachchan played the character of Sarkar who is a self righteous and powerful politician. Sarkar went on to become a critically acclaimed box office hit.
Varma's ambitious Sholay remake Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag was a critical and box office failure.His film DARLING followed after this which was another dud. He Was written off by te media and public till June 2008 when he bounced back with his grand and much hyped venture, Sarkar Raj
His film Sarkar Raj, a sequel to Sarkar, released on June 6, 2008 was an average success and even his latest film Phoonk received positive reviews.
Ram Gopal Varma has won the Nandi award (Awards given by Government of Andhra Pradesh yearly) for Best Director forthly for 'Shiva', 'Kshana kshanam' and 'Prema Katha'.
He also has won Best Director (in Bollywood) four times for Satya, Jungle, Company and Bhoot.
