Born on September 10, 1972, Anurag Kashyap is an Indian actor and director best recognised for his roles in Hindi cinema. Anurag Kashyap has four Filmfare Awards to his name. In 2013, the French government granted him the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters for his contributions to the cinema industry.
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Following his beginnings as a television serial writer, Kashyap gained significant recognition as a co-writer for Ram Gopal Varma’s crime drama Satya (1998). Anurag Kashyap then made his directorial debut with Paanch, a film that was never released in theatres because of censorship concerns. After that, he directed the 2004 movie Black Friday, which was based on Hussain Zaidi’s book of the same name about the Bombay bombings in 1993.
Due to the case’s pending verdict at the time, the District Board of Film Certification delayed its distribution for two years. However, when it was finally released in 2007, it received overwhelmingly positive reviews. No Smoking (2007), Kashyap’s follow-up, received unfavourable reviews and did poorly at the box office. His second project, a contemporary take on Devdas called Dev.D (2009), was well-received by critics and a commercial success. It was succeeded by the thriller That Girl in Yellow Boots (2011) and the socio-political drama Gulaal (2009).
With the release of the two-part crime drama Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Kashyap’s notoriety grew. Subsequently, Kashyap co-produced the highly praised drama Shahid (2012) and the critically acclaimed drama The Lunchbox (2013). For the former, he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Picture Not in the English Language. His subsequent motion pictures were the drama Ugly (2014) and the anthology Bombay Talkies (2013). Inspired by the serial killer Raman Raghav, Kashyap directed Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016. The sports drama Mukkabaaz was his second movie, and it came out in 2018. In the same year, he co-directed Manmarziyaan, an Indian romantic drama, and Sacred Games, a criminal thriller based on Vikram Chandra’s book of the same name. Sacred Games was India’s first Netflix Original series. In addition, he is a co-founder of Good Bad Films, a production company for films.
Anurag Kashyap Childhood
In Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, on September 10, 1972, Kashyap was born into a Rajput family. His father, Sri Prakash Singh, was assigned to the Obra Thermal Power Station in the Sonbhadra district, which is close to Varanasi. He is a retired Chief Engineer from the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited.
Anurag Kashyap completed his sixth grade education at Dehradun’s Hillgrange Preparatory School and his seventh grade education at Gwalior’s Scindia School. A few of the settings in Gangs of Wasseypur are also reminiscent of his former home, where he shared a home with his brother, Abhinav Kashyap, sister Anubhuti Kashyap, and parents. In addition, Abhinav is a director. He debuted as a director with the masala hit Dabangg (2010). In most of his films, Anubhuti has served as his assistant. Doctor G (2022), a medical college comedy starring Ayushmann Khurrana, Rakul Preet Singh, Shefali Shah, and Sheeba Chaddha, marked her directorial debut.
Anurag Kashyap Career
“At the age of 19, I was a zoology student at Hansraj College in Delhi, and I had no intention of becoming a filmmaker. Until I saw Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves at a Delhi film festival in 1993. I made the decision to give it all up and move to Bombay to pursue my dream of being a director when the movie ended.”
—Kashyap on how he was transformed by a movie. In 1993, Kashyap landed in Bombay with INR 5,000 following his de Sica adventure. Anurag Kashyap lived on the streets for months after the money ran out, sleeping in lofts, “sleeping on beaches,” “under a water tank, and in the St. Xavier’s [college] boys hostel.” After that, he was able to secure employment with Prithvi Theatre, but the director of his first play passed away, leaving it unfinished.
Anurag Kashyap Director And A Writer
From 1990 to 1999
Shivam Nair was first exposed to Kashyap by a friend in 1995. Kashyap was inspired to “write something” by the movie Taxi Driver (1976), which he viewed at Nair’s apartment the day they first met. The trio of Sriram Raghavan, Sridhar Raghavan, and Shiv Subramaniam was working on two projects: a film scripted by Kashyap, and a short TV series called Auto Narayan, which was based on the life of serial killer Auto Shankar.His second directing endeavour was the anthology film Mumbai Cutting (2010). Eleven short films from eleven different directors made up the collection. One of the short films was directed by him. It made its debut at the Los Angeles Indian Film Festival in 2008.
Kashyap during an Udaan news conference, 2010.
That Girl in Yellow Boots, a thriller co-written and starring Kalki Koechlin, was directed by Kashyap in 2011. Numerous festivals screened the movie, including the London Indian Film Festival, the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, the 67th Venice International Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010.
The thirteen-day shoot resulted in a September 2011 theatrical release. Roger Ebert rated it 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying that “a film like this provides a radically different view of India than you can find in the pleasures and excesses of Bollywood.” He also praised the character-driven story and how the lead is portrayed alongside the city in contrast to other Hindi films.
Kashyap began work on his ambitious 2012 feature Gangs of Wasseypur, which had screenings at the Sundance feature Festival in 2013, the Toronto Film Festival, the London Indian Film Festival, the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2012, and other film festivals.The ensemble cast movie was a two-part crime drama that took place between the early 1940s and 2009 and focused on the Dhanbad coal mafia. Both the first and second parts, which were released on June 22, 2012, and August 8, 2012, respectively, were well-received by Indian and foreign critics. Its success at the box office was made possible by the combined budget of the two films.
That Day After Everyday, a 20-minute short film directed by Kashyap in 2013 and starring Radhika Apte, Geetanjali Thapa, and Sandhya Mridul, was made available on YouTube. It told the tale of three employed women who encountered difficulties on a daily basis, both within and outside of their homes, and how they overcame them. The video, which addressed topics including public molestation and eve teasing, received four lakh views in just two days. When discussing the project’s goal, Kashyap made it clear that he intended to infuriate people without providing a remedy. In the same year, he directed “Murabba,” one of the four parts of the anthology film Bombay Talkies, in collaboration with Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, and Karan Johar. It was exhibited at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was created to commemorate 100 years of Indian film . Although the movie did not fare well at the box office, reviewers gave it positive reviews .
His next picture was the thriller Ugly (2014), which tells the story of the kidnapping and subsequent events of the daughter of a struggling actress. Standing ovations were given when it was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The movie’s theatrical release was put on hold for more than a year due to censorship concerns about its portrayal of smoking. even though it received mostly favourable reviews when it was released on December 26, 2014.
Bombay Velvet (2015), a historical drama film based on Princeton University historian Gyan Prakash’s book Mumbai Fables and set in Bombay in the 1960s, was Kashyap’s next release. Karan Johar, Anushka Sharma, and Ranbir Kapoor are the main stars. Thelma Schoonmaker, an Academy Award–winning editor best known for her work with Martin Scorsese, co-edited the movie. When it was released on May 15, 2015, the film was panned by some critics for having a dated appearance and for having poor acting, styling, and soundtrack. It turned out to be a box office bust as well. Kashyap’s ideal project, Bombay Velvet, failed miserably, and it deeply disappointed him.
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In an interview with critic Rajeev Masand, Kashyap revealed that he had considered leaving India because he believed the country’s citizens did not comprehend his films. However, he later acknowledged that his failure to oversee the film’s budget was the reason for his desire. Inspired by the infamous serial killer Raman Raghav, Kashyap co-wrote and directed the thriller Raman Raghav 2.0 in 2016. Vicky Kaushal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui portrayed the title roles, respectively. The film received favourable reviews for its Director’s Fortnight section premieres at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival and the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
Following his work on Raman Raghav 2.0, Vineet Kumar Singh of Mukkabaaz sent Kashyap a script. Although he was not fond of the original writing, he was thrilled to see a “10-minute chunk” that he had never seen before. After that, he revised the script to give his side the 10-minute base.Singh spent six months training for the movie . The movie debuted in theatres on January 12, 2018, after screenings at the Mumbai Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017. According to NDTV’s Saibal Chatterjee, it’s “one of the more important films to have come out of the Mumbai movie industry in recent times.” For the anthology film Lust Stories in 2018, Banerjee, Akhtar, and Johar once more worked with Kashyap. It featured stories given from the perspective of women and was based on the concept of lust. Radhika Apte and Akash Thosar were in Kashyap’s narrative. June 15, 2018, was the movie’s Netflix release date.
Then came India’s first Netflix Original series, the crime thriller Sacred Games, which was adapted from the same-titled novel by Vikram Chandra. Along with Vikramaditya Motwane, Kashyap co-directed the series. The programme was well welcomed by critics, with GQ’s Lincoln Michel describing it as the “best Netflix original in years”. Manmarziyaan, his last film of the year, was a Punjabi love triangle starring Vicky Kaushal, Tapsee Pannu, and Abhishek Bachchan. The film, which was written by Kanika Dhillon, received favourable reviews upon its September 16 release in India after making its world premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Kashyap directed the audio web series Thriller Factory, which was released in December 2019 on Amazon’s Audible Suno app. The voices of Tabu and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are used in it.
2020s
The next year, Kashyap directed the horror anthology film Ghost Stories, returning to his Lust Stories crew. In his story, a pregnant woman experiencing anxiety was the subject. On January 1, 2020, Netflix launched it. He kept working with Netflix, and the same platform saw the premiere of his directorial debut, Choked (2020). The movie, which stars Saiyami Kher and Roshan Mathew, is about a bank teller who discovers a cache of cash concealed in her kitchen sink.
Dobaaraa is a science fiction thriller that Kashyap directed in 2022. The movie, which debuted at the London Indian Film Festival and went on general release on August 19, 2022, is an official adaptation of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage. Tanul Thakur of The Wire wrote: “A sharp adaptation, the film is deeper than it cares to admit and never slips into an instructional mode.” Dobaaraa received largely positive reviews.
Shortly after the release of Dobaara, Kashyap collaborated with DJ Mohabbat on Almost Pyaar, another film. Alaya F and rookie Karan Mehta appeared in the musical romance drama. The film debuted globally at the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2022, and on February 3, 2023, it was theatrically distributed.
producer
In 2009, producer Kashyap established Anurag Kashyap Films, a production firm overseen by Guneet Monga. The first feature produced by the company was the critically acclaimed 2010 film Udaan, which debuted at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. He has since created other projects, such as Shorts (2013), Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana (2012), Aiyyaa (2012), Chittagong (2012), and Shaitan (2011). Along with this, he co-produced several films that have been shown in theatres but have not yet been released nationwide, such as Michael, Peddlers, and Monsoon Shootout. Kashyap created The Last Act in 2012, which was the first collaborative feature film in India made by twelve directors who also made ten-minute short films, each of which was a segment of a longer narrative he wrote
Kennedy, a thriller film, was written and directed by Kashyap in 2023. At first, he had named the movie after Vikram and intended to cast him. But some miscommunication prevented them from cooperating. Rahul Bhat finally took over the role; Sunny Leone also makes a significant appearance. At the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, the movie made its global premiere.
Actor
Kashyap has appeared in several films, both his own and other people’s. He played a child abuser in Black Friday, No Smoking (2007), Tera Kya Hoga Johnny (2008), Luck by Chance (2009), Dev.D., Gulaal, Soundtrack (2011), Trishna (2011), Bhoothnath Returns (2014), Happy New Year (2014), and I Am (2010). In the same year, he costarred with Nimrat Kaur in the short film Encounter (2010) as a police officer. He was cast in the lead role of Bunty Bhaiya, the antagonist, in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s criminal thriller Shagird (2011).
In the 2016 film Akira by AR Murugadoss, starring Sonakshi Sinha, Kashyap portrayed a dishonest police officer. Anurag Kashyap costarred with Tisca Chopra and Surveen Chawla in the 2017 short film Chhuri. In R. Ajay Gnanamuthu’s Tamil-language thriller Imaikkaa Nodigal (2018), he also portrayed the antagonist. In the Vikramaditya Motwane-directed film AK vs. AK (2020), Kashyap portrayed an inflated version of himself opposite Anil Kapoor. In addition, he was one of the executive producers and authored the dialogue.
Anurag Kashyap Individual Life
Attending the 2009 Filmfare Awards with his then-wife Kalki Koechlin, Kashyap
Aaliyah Kashyap is the daughter of Kashyap’s first marriage to film editor Aarti Bajaj. 2009 saw their divorce. Actress Kalki Koechlin, whom he initially met at her Ooty mother’s house while filming Dev D, was eventually married to him. An announcement was made by Kashyap and Koechlin in 2013 stating that “they are taking time apart from their more than two-year-old marriage.” They were divorced at the Mumbai family court in Bandra in May of 2015.
Regarding his religious beliefs, Kashyap stated, “I don’t believe in religion.” The only religion I practise is cinema.”
The Income Tax Department conducted raids at 28 sites in Mumbai and Pune on March 3, 2021, in relation to the tax evasion of Phantom Films, a company associated with Anurag Kashyap. The Income Tax Department stated that it discovered an almost ₹300 crore disparity for which a Kashyap business officer could not provide an explanation.
Influences, themes, and style
Regarded as an auteur, Kashyap is acknowledged for having kicked off India’s indie culture in the early 2000s. Anupama Chopra’s broadcast featured a description of Kashyap’s aesthetics as “purely new age or purely Indian” by Dibakar Banerjee, who was promoting Bombay Talkies and projecting “modern post independence India” in his films. Anurag Kashyap likes to use concealed cameras and guerilla filmmaking techniques to shoot on real locations, and he frequently forces his actors to improvise speech while on set . Anurag Kashyap didn’t show the screenplay to any of the main performers in Ugly. He frequently employs experimental soundtracks and handheld cameras.
“He has a very strong storytelling style and he proved that you could tell a great story with not a lot of money,” wrote director Zoya Akhtar. Ranbir Kapoor, an actor, stated, “All his films may not be big money spinners but the impact Anurag has, his contribution to Indian cinema, is immense.” According to Cameron Bailey, a Canadian cinema reviewer and festival programmer, Kashyap is “one of the most knowledgeable filmmakers.”
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