Make-up artiste Samruddhi’s B’wood stint

Born in Nagpur and brought up in Hyderabad, 18-year-old Samruddhi Sathe, a professional make-up artiste, started freelancing at the age of 15 for Bollywood. The young and talented artiste is looking forward to make her mark in the field of make-up. In a brief chat, Samruddhi reveals her future plans and projects.

What inspired you to take up this profession?
I always loved make-up. Especially, since I have been dancing for 14 years, whenever we would perform, the make-up they used on us fascinated me and I always loved the creativity of make-up and how it transformed someone, whether it's beauty make-up or special effects.

Did you work for movies?
I started freelancing when I was 15 years old and slowly made my way to work for Bollywood films. My first film was ‘Parched’, directed by Leena Yadav, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. My second film was ‘Shivaay’, directed by actor Ajay Devgn.

How was your experience with celebrities?
It was overall a great experience working with some of the actors. They were serious about their work and the atmosphere on set was wonderful.

What is the difference between working for a movie and other than movies?
Honestly, working for a movie might just be easier than working with people. On a film, you're creating a character, so there is a lot of pre-planning and you are usually told what the director wants, whereas, with general people, it's either a hit or a miss. And personally, I work much better in a movie environment compared to a general gig.

Tell us about your future plans?
After I finished ‘Shivaay’, I took a break of almost eight months, when I finished my 12th, privately. During this period, I was privileged to win the Akriti Young Achievers Award. In 2016, I moved to Paris for my year-long Masters Make-up Course in the Make-Up For Ever TV & Cinema Make-up Academy (Owned by Louis Vuitton).

There I learned everything under the sun from beauty make-up for cinema to make-up for TV and to special effects and prosthetics. We had master classes with some of the biggest make-up artistes in Hollywood, like, Robin Matthews (Oscar Winner), Kazuhiro Tsuji (Planet of the Apes), Benjamin Button and Leonard Engleman (Chief Board of the Make-up Artiste and Hair Guild for Oscars). I am just back home after finishing my masters.

As of now, the two projects I will be working are with Preetisheel Singh for an untitled film, starring Rishi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan and after, ‘Padmavati’ starring Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor. I will leave for Mumbai this week.