At 66th National Awards, Ranjith wins Telugu cinema’s first ever award for best make-up

At the 66th National Awards ceremony which was held on Monday, Ranjith became the first make-up man from the Telugu film industry to win a National award. He won recognition for his work in the 2018 movie Awe, directed by Prasanth Verma.

Nani, who co-produced the movie along with Prashanti Tipireni, tweeted on Tuesday congratulating Ranjith to become the first artiste to win an award for make-up in the Telugu industry.

First one to win the national award for best make up in Telugu cinema ever and that too for our debut production #Awe .
My make up man Ranjith.
Proud 
Cheers to all the personal make up artists of #Awe who gave their best :) pic.twitter.com/O1htSgyjey

— Nani (@NameisNani) December 24, 2019

“First one to win the national award for best make-up in Telugu cinema ever and that too for our production house #Awe. My makeman Ranjith. Proud. Cheers to all personal make-up artists of Awe who gave their best,” Nani wrote on his Twitter handle.

Ranjith has been a make-up artiste in the Telugu film industry for the past 16 years and has worked primarily with Nani. Ranjith’s real name is U Giridhar and he changed his name after he started working in Telugu cinema.

Speaking to The Hindu in an interview earlier this year, Ranjith had said, “We all worked together, discussing the looks with the director. I cannot take credit on my own. I am really happy that our work has been recognised.”

Awe is a physiological thriller by debutant Prasanth Verma starring Kajal Aggarwal, Nithya Menen, Eesha Rebba, Regina Cassandra, Priyadarshi Pullikonda and Murali Sharma in lead roles. The film has multiple segments that deal with child abuse, drug and sexual abuse.

Ranjith and his team primarily won the award for their make-up for Regina Cassandra, which took them close to 12 hours to finish.

“There were tattoos on her back, so she couldn’t even sleep comfortably. The make-up team would touch up those tattoos before a shot,” Ranjith said in the interview, adding, “She had tattoos of Morse code (a connect to the segment featuring Srinivas Avasarala), a tree (the quirky character with voice-over by Ravi Teja), fish (voice by Nani), and so on. A lot of thought went into designing the look for each character.”