He may have cute looks, but that hero is actually a villain. Aniruddha Guha tracks down this new trend to find that leading actors are playing the role of the anti-hero and that too without any qualms. Imran Khan has turned bad. Hindi cinema’s newest chocolate boy, who won hearts with the teeny-bopper Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, should have normally followed it up with another ‘romcom’. Instead, he will be seen in a role which could decidedly be called villainous in his next film, Kidnap, which is releasing in a month or so. This is now a growing trend — the hero with shades of grey. What would have been considered a career suicide till a few years ago is now a USP. The new-age Hindi film actor, right from John Abraham and Hrithik Roshan to Neil Nitin Mukesh, is not afraid to play the baddie anymore. But this has also meant that the typical villain of yore — den, molls and sidekicks in place — is dead. Nor can the audience easily identify an actor who might be in the villain’s role.
“And I don’t see them making a comeback either,” says Sanjay Gadhvi — referring to the stereotypical villains that were once a part of Bollywood lore — who’s directing Imran in Kidnap. “When mainstream heroes are playing negative characters, who’ll want to see standard villains perform such roles?” He credits Shah Rukh Khan for this trend. In 1993, Khan starred in two films, Baazigar and Darr, and made audiences fall in love with his hateful characters. And the era of the anti-hero was kick-started.
Mainstream stars like Aamir Khan (in 1947 Earth), Akshay Kumar (in Ajnabee), Ajay Devgan (in Khakee) and even Amitabh Bachchan (in Aankhen and Aag) performed negative roles with élan. Gadhvi’s Dhoom series had John Abraham and Hrithik Roshan play the bad guy with a style and charisma that won more fans than the hero’s character in these films. “It’s juicier for a director to have both the protagonist and antagonist played by stars. The conflict that emanates out of it takes a film to another level,” admits Gadhvi.
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