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Deepak Verma MBE (b. 11 February 1969) [1] is a British actor, writer and television/film producer of Indian Punjabi descent and Hindu heritage. His role as market-stall trader Sanjay Kapoor in long-running BBC One soap opera EastEnders brought him to the attention of UK mainstream viewers. [2]
Verma trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He made his television debut in the Scottish detective series Taggart in 1992. However, he is best known for his portrayal of the adulterous gambler Sanjay Kapoor in the popular BBC soap opera EastEnders (1993–1998). [2] During his time on the show, Verma's character was central to many explosive storylines, including the breakdown of his marriage to Gita (Shobu Kapoor), caused by his extramarital affair with her sister, as well as being falsely accused of her suspected murder. The couple eventually left Walford together in the midst of press scandal.
Since leaving EastEnders in 1998, Verma has set up his own film and television production company, Pukkanasha Films. [3] The company's mission is to develop and produce a slate of innovative, offbeat, fresh and vibrant feature films by drawing on diverse cultural backgrounds, particularly Indian and western.
He has also written several stage plays and screenplays, including Tandoori Chicks, a screenplay about three sisters and their dad's Indian restaurant; Eastside Story and London Gold (BBC films), two high concept feature films; Hitman, a film based on the cult novel by Max Kinnings; and a screenplay entitled Ghostdancing Based on Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin , it is a tale of adultery and murder transposed to a small town in the present day.
His first play, Pool of Tranquility, was selected in the finals of the Royal Court Young People's Theatre's young writers' festival in 1992, where it was a finalist. That led to a BBC Radio 4 commission to write a play based on the life of India's most famous bandit, Phoolan Devi, 'Bandit Queen'. He's since penned further plays for Radio 4, the BBC World Service and a play at the King's Head, Islington, London.
Verma was chosen to represent the UK at the Talent Campus at the Berlinale 2004, Berlin Film Festival. He is a member of the European Producers' Club and recently was a participant in RISE (Recontres Internationales Des Scenaristes Europeens). He is currently a participant in the prestigious Eave programmes for European producers.
Deepak won an award for achievement for his contribution to the arts, presented by Keith Vaz MP at the House of Commons in 1997.
Verma continues to act on mainstream television in the UK. Other notable credits include Holby City (2001); White Teeth (2002); River City (2003); Doctors (2003) and All About Me (2003). [4]
He performed in Dominion - Seed of Evil, a US television series.
Deepak has appeared in various theatre shows in the UK as well as training with EAVE in Europe, the film producers' training organisation. Deepak regularly teaches at the Actors' Centre in London and is experienced in leading workshops, including at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Tom Allen Centre in London.
His company Pukkanasha Films is producing a film version of 'Wuthering Heights' set in India (Rajasthan), originally produced by Tamasha Theatre company in 2009–2010.
In 2011/2012 he completed a film Called 'Mumbai Charlie', about a community in India who worship Charlie Chaplin. It won the Silver Lei award at the Honolulu Film awards. He and his team worked with local children from underprivileged schools and did drama workshops with them, eventually incorporating them into the 30-minute film.
His plays Ghostdancing, an adaptation of the French Novel Thérèse Raquin, and adaptation of Wuthering Heights have been published by Methuen. The latter is on the reading list for Royal Holloway University's Drama department.
In 2010 Verma conceived Faith Shorts, a global film competition to inspire young people to make short films about their faith. This was developed and produced by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and is an annual event. Tony Blair said: "By gaining insights into the lives of young people across the world this competition has the potential to build bridges across cultural and religious divides. I hope this competition will provide a platform for creative and talented young people and an opportunity for young filmmakers to see their work promoted on the global stage.”
Verma was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to the arts. [5]
Shekhar Kulbhushan Kapur is an Indian filmmaker and actor. Born into the Anand-Sahni family, Kapur is the recipient of several accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a National Film Award, a National Board of Review Award and three Filmfare Awards, in addition to nomination for a Golden Globe Award.
Thérèse Raquin is an 1868 novel by French writer Émile Zola, first published in serial form in the literary magazine L'Artiste in 1867. It was Zola's third novel, though the first to earn wide fame. The novel's adultery and murder were considered scandalous and famously described as "putrid" in a review in the newspaper Le Figaro.
Matthew Robinson is a British-Cambodian television and film executive producer, producer, director and writer. After graduating from Cambridge University. he directed many episodes of popular British television dramas and soap operas in the 1970s and 1980s. He became the first producer of the series Byker Grove (1989–1997), and was also made the executive producer of EastEnders (1998–2000).
Biwi No.1 is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language comedy film directed by David Dhawan, being a remake of the 1995 Tamil film Sathi Leelavathi. It stars Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Tabu and Sushmita Sen in lead roles with Amitabh Bachchan and Saif Ali Khan in a special appearance.
Alison Steadman is an English actress. She received the 1991 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film Life Is Sweet and the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Mari in the original production of The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. In a 2007 Channel 4 poll, the ‘50 Greatest Actors’ voted for by other actors, she was ranked 42.
Burn Hugh Gorman is an American-born English actor and musician. He is known for his roles as Major Edmund Hewlett in the AMC series Turn: Washington's Spies (2014-2017), Owen Harper in the BBC series Torchwood (2006–2008), Phillip Stryver in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Clubfoot Karl Tanner in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2013–2014), Hermann Gottlieb in Pacific Rim (2013) and its sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018). Gorman portrayed 'The Marshal' in the first season of the Amazon drama The Man in the High Castle and Adolphus Murtry in season four of The Expanse.
Kapoor or Kapur is a Punjabi surname of Khatri clan found in the Punjabi Hindu and Sikh communities.
Vinod Mehra was an Indian actor in Hindi films. He started out as a child actor in the mid 1950s before starting his film career as an adult in 1971. He acted in over 100 films from the 1970s through to his death at the age of 45 in 1990. He was also the producer and director of the film Gurudev which was released 3 years after his death.
Gita Kapoor is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Shobu Kapoor, from 18 February 1993 to 24 September 1998.
Shobu Kapoor is a British actress.
Ben Daniels is a British actor. Initially a stage actor, Daniels was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for Never the Sinner (1991), the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for 900 Oneonta (1994), Best Actor in the M.E.N. Theatre Awards for Martin Yesterday (1998), and won the 2001 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons.
Taarzan: The Wonder Car, or simply called Taarzan, is a 2004 Indian Hindi-language supernatural action thriller film directed by Abbas–Mustan. The film stars Ajay Devgn, Vatsal Sheth and Ayesha Takia, while Farida Jalal, Pankaj Dheer, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Amrish Puri, Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover and Mukesh Tiwari play supporting roles. Upon release, the film was a box office disaster but gained popularity among children and television audiences. It is loosely based on the American film Christine (1983). This also marked the debut of Ayesha Takia, for which she won the Filmfare Best Debut Award.
Jamila Massey is a British actress and writer. Massey has had a long career on UK television and radio. She is known for playing Auntie Satya in the long-running radio soap The Archers, Jamila Ranjha in Mind Your Language, and Sanjay Kapoor's mother Neelam in EastEnders.
Polly Becker is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Victoria Gould from 25 March 1997 until 22 September 1998.
Tamasha Theatre Company is a British theatre company founded in 1989 by director Kristine Landon-Smith and actor-writer Sudha Bhuchar. Tamasha is an Indian word meaning "spectacle". The company has brought contemporary Asian-influenced drama to the British stage, mixing naturalism with humour, and succeeding in attracting large Asian audiences.
Kieran Bew is an English actor, known for portraying ‘Big’ Bill O’Hara in Warrior for HBO MAX, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria in Da Vinci's Demons for Starz, Hans Christian Andersen: My Life as a Fairytale for Hallmark Entertainment and Gary Parr in Jimmy McGovern's BAFTA Award-winning The Street. He has worked extensively in British theatre and television since graduating from LAMDA in 2001.
Edward George More O'Ferrall was a pioneering British film and television producer and director, as well as an actor.
This is a list of adaptations of Wuthering Heights, which was Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte and published in 1850.
Prem is a 1995 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film directed by Satish Kaushik and cinematography by Baba Azmi and Chota K. Naidu. It stars Sanjay Kapoor and Tabu in dual roles, and deals with the concept of reincarnation. Shekhar Kapoor was initially attached to direct the film before Kaushik was contracted. The film was a box office failure.
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