Deepak Sawant has been with Amitabh Bachchan for the last 40 years as his makeup artist. He spoke to Divya Kaushik about changing Bollywood trends and Big B being his inspiration

He had an idea of how Auro of Paa should look to make the audience laugh and cry with the child suffering from the rare disease progeria. Credit him for the Big B’s jazzy and flambouyant looks in movies like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and Buddha Hoga Tera Baap. Deepak Sawant has been with Amitabh Bachchan for more than 40 years and each scene is run by him to give him clarity on the Bachchan’s look. “If he is getting ready for an emotional scene the makeup has to be little dark and dull. I have to understand the mood completely to give him the right makeup required. I would say makeup contributes to over 70 per cent to the scene. It helps an actor define the emotions minus the dialogues. As a different scene requires different makeup I go through the scene carefully before doing the makeup. For example, if you will watch Satyagraha, there are scenes when Amitabh Bachchan is delivering some lecture on stage, he has a glow on his skin, but when he is in distress you can see the lips are cracked, the skin is dark. For varying looks it is important to get the base of the skin right. Earlier not many makeup products were available in India and mostly skin shades were ordered from abroad. But they were too bright for the Indian skin, so we used to mix the dark and lighter tones to get the shade to suit the Indian skin tone. Now there are many good products available in India but for sad scenes we still have to produce our own dark shades,” says Sawant, who somehow managed to spare a few minutes to talk to us while he was busy with the shooting of present installment of Kaun Banega Crorepati. “I have to be on the sets one hour before Bachchan ji has to arrive and I stay for an hour later when he leaves. He is very punctual and wants everything ready when he walks in on the sets. If he has told the crew that he will be there at nine in the morning, no matter what he will be at the location at nine and it is my responsibility to reach at eight,” he adds. Sawant says that he has worked hard to ensure that each season of KBC has Big B in a different look. “He is 72-year-old now and naturally there is a change in the way he looks now and how he looked when the first season of the show went on air. In some ways you will find the look is consistent but it is brighter now and is done in a way to suit his attitude as a host of the show. I am using high definition makeup for the show,” he informs.

Sawant grew up in Mumbai and it wasn’t difficult for him to learn the tricks of the trade as his father was also a make up artist in Bollywood. “But during that time none of the heroes had a personal makeup artist. The production companies used to hire makeup artists for a film. The trend was started by Rajesh Khanna who started getting his own makeup artist to the sets. Around that time I was learning while being on the job. There were no training institutions then and Bollywood makeup is different altogether. I met Amitabh Bachchan for the first time in 1972 during the shoot of the film Raste Ka Pathhar. During the shoot of Janjeer Amitabh ji called me and since then I have been with him,” he shares.

More than the name and fame, Sawant says he has learnt discipline from Big B. “I have learnt that no matter what you are doing it is important to give your 100 per cent and stay humble. I have never seen Amitabh ji getting into an argument with someone. He works hard to stay fit, eats healthy and sleeps less. Usually he takes an after-meal nap and that is enough sleep for him for the day,” he says.

Sawant wanted to do something different and therefore ventured into making film. He made a Marathi film but realised that “there is no money in Marathi films.” He switched over to making Bhojpuri films and his films are doing “very good.” The inspiration, he says, came from Big B who helped him in the making as well promoting the films. Now Sawant is planning to come up with an audio biography. “Singers like Udit Narayan, Babul Supriyo and Alka Yagnik have lent their voices for the same and it will be launched soon. I also want to make a Hindi film now,” he ends.