6 min readLos AngelesMar 16, 2026 04:18 PM IST
First published on: Mar 16, 2026 at 04:18 PM IST
Fans of Hindi cinema didn’t know that 38 years after the demise of legendary actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor, there’d be another Raj Kapoor doing him and his country proud internationally. Raj Kapoor, a Canadian of Indian descent, not only shares his name with the craftsman of Bollywood classics like Aag (1948), Barsaat (1949), Awaara (1951), Sangam (1964), Mera Naam Joker (1970), Bobby (1973), Prem Rog (1982), and Satyam Shivam Sundaram (1978), but also is a distant relative of Bollywood’s Kapoor family. His most recent achievement is serving as the showrunner and an executive producer of the 98th Academy Awards held in Los Angeles on Sunday.
Road to two Emmys, nine nominations
Born in New Delhi, Raj Kapoor was the son of two teachers, who relocated to Canada during his childhood. Having grown up on Indian movies and international award shows, Raj began his career in Los Angeles as a dancer and an assistant choreographer in Hollywood. “I never had other plans, and always wanted to be in entertainment industry,” he told The Global Indian in 2024.
“I’ve watched all these shows since I was a kid. These were always my favorites – the Academy Awards, the Grammys and the Tonys,” Raj Kapoor told Billboard last month. “I remember begging my parents to see if I could stay up late so I could watch. I’d probably only be allowed to watch the first hour. And I always wanted to ask for another half-hour, or peer around the corner to see if I could still see a little bit more, because I always thought they were so exciting and glamorous and beautiful, and I wanted to see all the music performances. They always felt so exciting to me,” he added.
Little did he know that he’d grow up to serve as an Executive Producer (EP) on several ceremonies of all these three prestigious award shows. His first major breakthrough came when he was invited to serve as an EP of the Grammy Awards in 2022. “One of the biggest times in my life was when Ben Winston called to ask me to be the showrunner of the Grammys. (Recording Academy CEO) Harvey Mason called a few minutes later to congratulate me, and then (former CBS executive) Jack Sussman called, and I just remember those butterflies and those tears kind of welling up in my eyes. And it was like, ‘My dreams are coming true,'” he recalled.
But before getting his first gig as an EP of the Grammy Awards, Raj Kapoor had to hustle and make his way up for over a decade. His first credit as a producer came with the Radio Disney Music Awards in 2016, where he served as a co-executive producer. He followed it up with the same title at the iHeartRadio Music Awards in 2018. His first solo credit as an EP came with the 44th E! People’s Choice Awards later that year.
“When you walk into those rooms and you get to be around all these amazing people who work on our staff, and the hundreds of people that are part of the crew, and you get to help lead the show and put together the rest of the creative team, and your vision is supported by so many people behind-the-scenes, there really isn’t a better feeling in the world,” said Raj Kapoor.
Entering the big league with the Grammys in 2022 coincided with Raj Kapoor winning his first Primetime Emmy Award for executive producing Adele: One Night Only in the Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-recorded) category. He went on to win another Emmy for his first credit as an Oscar EP for the 96th Academy Awards, 2024 in the Outstanding Variety Special (Live) category.
A year before he became the EP of the Oscars, he directed the “Naatu Naatu” performance at the 96th Academy Awards moments before the RRR track won the Best Original Song. “The ‘Naatu Naatu’ performance was a very personal one for me. A tribute to honour my late father who I lost in July and a celebration of Indian musicals and my birthplace,” he told The Global Indian.
He has also been nominated seven more times, for two other Oscar telecasts, four Grammy telecasts, and the 2022 TV special Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music & Laughter. “I often say, I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet, to be able to do what I love, to be in the position that I’m in, to hopefully make memorable moments that go down in television history. I hope there’s a few of them,” said Raj.
The lesser known Raj Kapoor
Raj Kapoor’s late father was a distant relative of Bollywood’s Kapoor family. Unfortunately, Raj Kapoor never met his namesake, who passed away at the age of 63 in 1988. “I’ve watched the great actor’s movies and it’s nice to be associated with his name,” he told The Global Indian. But he did manage to meet his namesake’s son and actor Rishi Kapoor before he breathed his last in April 2020. Rishi, who spotted his father’s name during an Oscars telecast, tweeted about it.
“Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema,” wrote Rishi, after the 90th Academy Awards which included his uncle and Chandni co-star, respectively, in the In Memoriam segment.
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“So my cousins (in India) had sent me all these screenshots, and they’re like, ‘Rishi Kapoor knows who you are,'” recalled Raj Kapoor. When Rishi Kapoor visited Los Angeles, the actor’s representative reached out to Raj. “We had coffee in Beverly Hills and just talked about the movie industry, talked a little bit about my television career, and yeah, and that my grandfather knew his father,” added Raj.
Raj Kapoor, a Canadian of Indian descent, was the showrunner of Oscars 2026. 
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