Shekhar Kapur

Some Lesser Known Facts About Shekhar Kapur

• Shekar Kapur is the nephew of veteran actor Deva Anand.

• Before entering into the film industry, Shekhar Kapur worked as a Charted Accountant for many big firms in London.

• He always wanted to become a director, but when he told his father about his dream, his father disapproved of his ambition.

• During his career as a Charted Accountant, he felt that he can’t do anything but become a director as his soul was in the direction. So he left his corporate job and came back to India to join the Indian film industry.

• Since he always wanted to become a director, he tried his best to convince many producers but failed to do so. Hence just to stay stable in the industry, he unwillingly did a small role in his uncle, Dev Anand’s, film, ‘Ishq Ishq Ishq’.

• After doing half a dozen movies as an actor, he then directed his first film ‘Massoom’ in 1983.

• He was in a relationship with Shabana Azmi for about seven years. But things did not work out between the two and both parted ways. Even after they got separated, both worked together in the film ‘Masoom’.

• At a point, Shekhar Kapur became tired of filmmaking and went to the Philippines to become a scuba-diving instructor and after that went to London and joined a TV show ‘On The Other Hand’ as the host.

• Shekhar Kapur directed the most controversial film ‘Bandit Queen’ in 1994. The movie was critically acclaimed and brought him several offers from Bollywood as well as Hollywood. He then directed the Hollywood movie ‘Elizabeth’ in 1998 and  ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age’ in 2007, among which the first got nominated for seven and the latter was nominated for two Oscars.

• He gave his voice to the  Charkha Audiobooks titled ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’ for the role of Mohan Das as the narrator.

• Shekhar Kapur was the judge of the talent hunt show ‘India’s Got Talent’ in 2013 and a member of the jury at the May 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

• He received the ‘British Academy Film Awards’ (BAFTA Film Awards) for Best Film’ for the movie Elizabeth (1998) and was also awarded ‘Padam Shri’ the fourth highest award in India in 2000.

• In December 2018, he took to Twitter to reveal that he was dyslexic and had attention deficit disorder (ADD).