I applied at least 40, 45 kinds of make-up on Nitish Bharadwaj before he was signed on ( Bharadwaj played Lord Krishna). He wanted even the tikkas on the characters' foreheads to be authentic so a lot of research went into that too. Look tests of actors alone took two years. We used a lot of fake moustaches, wigs and prosthetics.ī R Chopra was very thorough with his research.
When you are working with a film company, you get to work with different skin types and learn different styles of applying make-up. It took a lot of time and effort to hide it.Īnother time, when I was flown to Rome in 1989 for a Lux commercial with Meenakshi Seshadri, cameraman Varun Mukherjee and I had to work really hard to conceal pimples on her face.Īfter Gunj was completed, Reena Roy wanted to hire me as her personal make-up artist, but I wasn't really keen because working exclusively for one person restricts the scope to learn. Reena Roy had a bad acne problem around the time she starred in Gunj. Image: Shashikant Mhatre applies make-up to Salma Agha on the sets of Nikaah It's easier to work with good skin problematic skin takes a little more effort. It doesn't matter for us if a star has bad skin. I won an award for the make-up in Nikaah. The film's lead actress - Salma Agha - was too fair, so we had to do several tests with different shades of make-up on her before shooting commenced.įinally, Dharam Chopra, the cinematographer, approved one style to be used for the entire film. Nikaah was another standout film in my career. Production companies used to have make-up artists on their payroll who would work with whichever star was signed on to star in their films. The concept of having your personal make-up artist wasn't really popular back then. She wanted to hire me as her personal make-up expert, but I declined. Image: Shashikant Mhatre - filling in for an absent junior artist in a court martial scene in the film Awaam - sits next to Rajesh Khanna and Vijay Arora We used a lot of prosthetics and new ways of doing make-up to show burnt skin and cuts.
The Burning Train turned out to be one of the best learning experiences in my career.
They said, " Yeh toh chhota ladka hai, yeh kya kar payega? Hum kisi bade artist ko bula lenge (he is a young boy, what can he do? We must get a big artist)."īut B R Chopra said he had faith in my work and wouldn't want anyone else to do the job. People were sceptical about my capabilities. The script demanded some heavy duty make-up - as the name of the film suggests, there are a lot of cuts, bruises and burning happening in the film. I remember when B R Chopra was about to start shooting The Burning Train. I have worked on many BR films including Karam, starring Rajesh Khanna, and Aaj Ki Awaz, starring Raj Babbar and Smita Patil, among others. Image: Shashikant Mhatre with Madhuri Dixit, on the sets of Deewana Mujhsa Nahi Here, he takes us on a magical mystery tour of the movies. Mhatre counts his chance meeting with Abigail among one of the memorable incidents in his eventful career defined by happy accidents, a long and fruitful association with BR Films (the late filmmaker BR Chopra's production company), and challenging work on the most iconic epic saga we have witnessed on Indian television.
The letter he is searching for is from Abigail Hopkins, the musician daughter of Sir Anthony Hopkins who he met and briefly worked with during an assignment for Zee TV in London a few years ago. His ancestral home near Portuguese Church in Dadar, central Mumbai, which he shares with Sarayu, his wife of 34 years, and his extended family, is undergoing redevelopment so he has temporarily moved into an apartment close by. When I meet him, he is preoccupied with finding a very special letter, a souvenir from a glorious past, that he may have lost while moving house a few months ago.
Shashikant Mhatre has practised this craft for over 40 years and has worked with some of the biggest movie stars. Often, those enticing kohl-lined eyes, scarlet lips and that near-perfect hint of colour on the cheeks that makes our hearts skip a beat owe much to the hands of the brush holder - the make-up artist who transforms good-looking people into impossibly dreamy and flawless screen gods and goddesses. Make-up man Shashikant Mhatre has worked with some of the biggest movie stars, and is a treasure-trove of untold stories from behind the scenes. As Indian cinema turns 100, we look at the film folk who work behind the scenes, without whom moviemaking would not ever have been possible.