Vikram Gaikwad

Vikram Gaikwad Biography

Vikram Gaikwad is a three time winner of Best Makeup artist at National Film awards and he won it for multiple language movies. He won the National awards for the first time in 2010 for his debut Bengali work - Moner Manush. It was followed by Balgandharva (Marathi) and The Dirty Picture (Hindi) the following year and missed the hat-trick in 2012. Yet he managed to win the awards in 2013 for the Bengali movie – Jaatishwar. Thus since 2010, he has missed only 2012 and can be regarded as the best costume designers of Indian film industry of present decade. He has also done a cameo appearance for 2012 Marathi film Tukaram.

Gaikwad has worked in over 50 films, more than 500 ads and countless theatre productions and has spent more than 25 years in the industry. Yet it’s in the recent times he has won National recognition. Saif Ali Khan’s ‘bahubali’ look in Omkara, Ritiesh Deshmukh’s much talked about three looks in the movie Apna Sapna Money Money, Arshad Warsi’s Japanese act for a Domino’s commercial, and Aamir Khan’s Sodhiji look in the Tata Sky commercial became successful through the makeup tricks of Vikram. Can anyone forget the duplicate of Bin Laden in the Hindi satire - 'Tere Bin Laden’? 'Sardar,' 'Making of Gandhi,' 'Maqbool,' 'Rang De Basanti,' 'Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar,' 'The Dirty Picture,' 'Delhi -6,' ‘Kaminey’, 'Mausam,' ‘Barfi’, 'Three Idiots,' 'Omkara,' and 'Tere Bin Laden’ are some of his highly acclaimed Bollywood works.

Gaikwad had primary schooling in Mumbai and shifted to Pune with his mother. Since childhood he wanted to do something different and had predetermined that he would never study after matriculation. Later he did many odd jobs like work in a garage. He was interested in makeup since the age of 8 and in those days he considered it as a hobby only. He got attracted to theatres because of his friend Ashok Shinde whose father Babanrao was an amazing make-up artiste. Thus he started his career by assisting Baburao Shinde, started with children's plays and then moved to musicals. He also attended the exams at Special Effects Institute of New York and Research Council of Make Up Artists Inc (RCMA), London and got opportunity to train under Rick Baker.

As an established makeup artist, he has worked with all prominent Indian film directors like Baburao Purandare, Shyam Benegal, Mani Ratnam, Vishal Bhardwaj, Rituparno Ghosh, and Gautam Ghose.

Published: N/A

Updated: June 30, 2014