Kunal Kapoor (Kapoor family)
Encyclopedia
Kunal Kapoor is a former Indian film actor of British and Indian descent. He is the eldest son of Shashi Kapoor
and late Jennifer Kendal
. Not to be confused with the young Indian actor Kunal Kapoor
who starred in Rang De Basanti
and Hattrick.
. his paternal uncles are Raj Kapoor
and Shammi Kapoor
. His younger brother Karan Kapoor
and sister Sanjana Kapoor
have also acted in some films but like him they were not very successful. His maternal grandparents Geoffrey Kendal
and Laura Kendal were actors who toured India and Asia with their theatre group, Shakespeareana, performing Shakespeare and Shaw
. The Merchant Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah
, was loosely based on the family, which starred his father and his aunt, the actress Felicity Kendal
.
He was married to Sheena Sippy, daughter of film director Ramesh Sippy
, they have two children, Zahan Prithviraj Kapoor & Shaira Laura Kapoor.
in which he played the son of the title character played by his father. He then appeared in Shyam Benegal
's critically acclaimed 1978 film Junoon
which also featured his father, mother and both his siblings. In 1981 he appeared in his first mainstream Bollywood
film titled Ahista Ahista opposite Padmini Kolhapure
. The film was a box office hit but it failed to launch his career. In 1982 he once again featured alongside his father in the much acclaimed Vijeta
. After that he appeared in the controversial art film Utsav
(1984), Sajan Tara Sambharna and Trikaal
(1985).
, starring his brother, Karan. Since then, he has directed more than 800 television commercials and is considered one of the better adfilm
directors in India. He is particularly known for his large scale formats, action, glamour and humour. Of late, most of the successful car commercials in India have been produced and directed by Kunal.
Adfilm-Valas has also line-produced
for many international feature films and adfilms shot in India. Notably, the credit sequence of the film City of Joy
, and the French films Le Cactus (2005) and Fire in Paradise.
Kunal Kapoor, along with his father, Shashi Kapoor are the Trustees of the Shri Prithviraj Kapoor Memorial Trust & Research Foundation, which owns and runs Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, Mumbai ( set up and built by Shashi Kapoor and his wife Jennifer Kapoor ). The Prithvi Theatre, now managed by Kunal’s younger sister Sanjna Kapoor, aims to promote professional Indian theatre, develop new theatre talent and audience, and be a centre of inspiration for Theatre and the performing arts.
Shashi Kapoor
Shashi Kapoor , born Balbir-Raj Prithviraj Kapoor on 18 March 1938 in Calcutta , is an award-winning Indian film actor and film producer. He has also been film director and assistant director in Hindi Films. He is a member of the Kapoor family, a film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema...
and late Jennifer Kendal
Jennifer Kendal
Jennifer Kapoor - born Jennifer Kendal - was a British actress who married Shashi Kapoor of the Kapoor family.-Childhood:Jennifer Kendal was born in Southport, England, but spent much of her youth in India...
. Not to be confused with the young Indian actor Kunal Kapoor
Kunal Kapoor
Kunal Kapoor is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi cinema.-Career:Kapoor began his career as an assistant director on the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Aks. He began his acting career training under theatre legend Barry John. He continued his theatre career with Motley, a theater group run by...
who starred in Rang De Basanti
Rang De Basanti
Rang De Basanti is a 2006 Indian drama film written and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. It features an ensemble cast comprising Aamir Khan, Soha Ali Khan, Madhavan, Kunal Kapoor, Siddharth Narayan, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni and British actress Alice Patten in the lead roles...
and Hattrick.
Family background
Kunal was born in the famous Kapoor family, particularly known for having produced several generations of popular actors and actresses. His paternal grandfather was Prithviraj KapoorPrithviraj Kapoor
Prithviraj Kapoor , 3 November 1906 – 29 May 1972) was a pioneer of Indian theatre and of the Hindi film industry, who started his career as an actor, in the silent era of Hindi cinema, associated with IPTA and who founded Prithvi Theatres, a travelling theatre company based in Mumbai, in...
. his paternal uncles are Raj Kapoor
Raj Kapoor
Known as Ranbir Raj Kapoor Rāj Kapūr, 14 December 1924 – 2 June 1988), also known as The Show-Man, was an Indian film actor, producer and director of Hindi cinema. He was the winner of nine Filmfare Awards, while his films Awaara and Boot Polish were nominated for the Palme d'Or at the...
and Shammi Kapoor
Shammi Kapoor
Shammi Kapoor was an Indian film actor and director. He was a prominent lead actor in Hindi cinema from the late 1950s until the early 1970s....
. His younger brother Karan Kapoor
Karan Kapoor
Karan Kapoor, Indian actor and model of the 1980s, is a member of the famous Kapoor family, an influential film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema.-Career:...
and sister Sanjana Kapoor
Sanjana Kapoor
Sanjana Kapoor is an Indian theatre personality and former Indian film actress, who has been running the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai since 1993. till 2012 February. -Biography:...
have also acted in some films but like him they were not very successful. His maternal grandparents Geoffrey Kendal
Geoffrey Kendal
Geoffrey Kendal was an English actor-manager.Born Richard Geoffrey Bragg in Kendal, Westmorland, he took the name of his place of birth as his surname. He married the actress Laura Liddell...
and Laura Kendal were actors who toured India and Asia with their theatre group, Shakespeareana, performing Shakespeare and Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
. The Merchant Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Madhur Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance...
, was loosely based on the family, which starred his father and his aunt, the actress Felicity Kendal
Felicity Kendal
Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...
.
He was married to Sheena Sippy, daughter of film director Ramesh Sippy
Ramesh Sippy
Ramesh Sippy is an Indian film director, probably best-known for directing the popular and critically acclaimed film Sholay ....
, they have two children, Zahan Prithviraj Kapoor & Shaira Laura Kapoor.
Actor
Kunal mostly acted in his father's films. He made his debut with the 1972 English-language film SiddharthaSiddhartha (film)
Siddhartha is a film based on the novel of the same name by Herman Hesse, directed by Conrad Rooks. It was shot on location in Northern India, and features work by noted cinematographer Sven Nykvist....
in which he played the son of the title character played by his father. He then appeared in Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal
Shyam Benegal is a prolific Indian director and screenwriter. With his first four feature films Ankur , Nishant Manthan and Bhumika he created a new genre, which has now come to be called the "middle cinema" in India although he himself has expressed dislike in the term preferring his work to...
's critically acclaimed 1978 film Junoon
Junoon (1978 film)
The soundtrack features 4 songs, composed by Vanraj Bhatia, with original lyrics from Yogesh Praveen and other lyrics by Amir Khusro, Jigar Moradabadi and Sant Kabir.#"Khusro rain piya ki jaagi pee ke sang" – Jamil Ahmad...
which also featured his father, mother and both his siblings. In 1981 he appeared in his first mainstream Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
film titled Ahista Ahista opposite Padmini Kolhapure
Padmini Kolhapure
Padmini Kolhapure is an Indian actress who appeared in Bollywood films during the 1970s and 1980s.-Early life:Padmini Kolhapure is from a Maharashtrian family. Her father, Pandharinath Kolhapure is a classical singer whose family was from Kolhapur and Goa. Her mother, whose family hailed from...
. The film was a box office hit but it failed to launch his career. In 1982 he once again featured alongside his father in the much acclaimed Vijeta
Vijeta
Vijeta is a 1982 Hindi film produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Govind Nihalani. It stars Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Kunal Kapoor and Amrish Puri.-Plot:Vijeta is the coming of age story of Angad...
. After that he appeared in the controversial art film Utsav
Utsav
Utsav is a 1984 Hindi film, produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Girish Karnad.The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Amjad Khan, Anuradha Patel, Shekhar Suman, Anupam Kher, Shankar Nag, Neena Gupta, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Annu Kapoor, Sanjana Kapoor and Kunal Kapoor.The role played by Shashi...
(1984), Sajan Tara Sambharna and Trikaal
Trikaal
Trikal is an Indian movie written and directed by Shyam Benegal, set in Goa during the early 1960s Period. The film starred yester years actress, Leela Naidu, in a comeback role after many decades....
(1985).
Director and producer
In 1987, Kunal set up his own company, Adfilm-Valas, and started producing and directing television commercials. One of this memorable creations was the "Dream Lover" series for Bombay DyeingBombay Dyeing
Bombay Dyeing is the flagship company of the Wadia Group, engaged mainly into the business of Textiles...
, starring his brother, Karan. Since then, he has directed more than 800 television commercials and is considered one of the better adfilm
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
directors in India. He is particularly known for his large scale formats, action, glamour and humour. Of late, most of the successful car commercials in India have been produced and directed by Kunal.
Adfilm-Valas has also line-produced
Line producer
A line producer is the key manager during the daily operations of a motion picture production.The line producer supports the vision given by the director but does not have direct influence on the creative expression or narrative of the film....
for many international feature films and adfilms shot in India. Notably, the credit sequence of the film City of Joy
City of Joy
City of Joy is a novel written by Dominique Lapierre and a 1992 film directed by Roland Joffé.-Plot:The story revolves around the trials and tribulations of a young Polish priest, Stephan Kovalski, the hardships endured by a rickshaw puller, Hasari Pal in Calcutta , India and the experiences of...
, and the French films Le Cactus (2005) and Fire in Paradise.
Kunal Kapoor, along with his father, Shashi Kapoor are the Trustees of the Shri Prithviraj Kapoor Memorial Trust & Research Foundation, which owns and runs Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, Mumbai ( set up and built by Shashi Kapoor and his wife Jennifer Kapoor ). The Prithvi Theatre, now managed by Kunal’s younger sister Sanjna Kapoor, aims to promote professional Indian theatre, develop new theatre talent and audience, and be a centre of inspiration for Theatre and the performing arts.
Filmography (as an actor)
- SiddhartaSiddhartha (film)Siddhartha is a film based on the novel of the same name by Herman Hesse, directed by Conrad Rooks. It was shot on location in Northern India, and features work by noted cinematographer Sven Nykvist....
(1972) - JunoonJunoon (1978 film)The soundtrack features 4 songs, composed by Vanraj Bhatia, with original lyrics from Yogesh Praveen and other lyrics by Amir Khusro, Jigar Moradabadi and Sant Kabir.#"Khusro rain piya ki jaagi pee ke sang" – Jamil Ahmad...
(1978) - Ahista Ahista (1981)
- VijetaVijetaVijeta is a 1982 Hindi film produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Govind Nihalani. It stars Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Kunal Kapoor and Amrish Puri.-Plot:Vijeta is the coming of age story of Angad...
(1982) - UtsavUtsavUtsav is a 1984 Hindi film, produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Girish Karnad.The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Amjad Khan, Anuradha Patel, Shekhar Suman, Anupam Kher, Shankar Nag, Neena Gupta, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Annu Kapoor, Sanjana Kapoor and Kunal Kapoor.The role played by Shashi...
(1984) - TrikaalTrikaalTrikal is an Indian movie written and directed by Shyam Benegal, set in Goa during the early 1960s Period. The film starred yester years actress, Leela Naidu, in a comeback role after many decades....
(1985) - Sajan Tara Sambharna (1985)
External links
- Kunal Kapoor at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Fansite