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Catching up with career-focused heroes are the young actresses of the day. If Priyanka Chopra spent an anxious Thursday shepherding her guests to watch Saat Khoon Maaf as an experience with complete concentration, it was Kangana Ranaut’s turn to take care of her new release Tanu Weds Manu. Taking a break from Sanjay Dutt’s shooting of Rascals in Bangkok, the girl from Himachal Pradesh returned to Mumbai for a few days and went to town promoting Tanu Weds Manu. Besides the trial shows that were held for the media, Kangana ensured that all the people she was close to were invited to the two special screenings that she had on Wednesday.
Unfortunately for her, she couldn’t fly back to Mumbai on time to receive her guests personally. Like all other actors, conscious of the importance of promotion, Kangana had gone to Gujarat for a media meet, hoping to be back in Mumbai by early evening but couldn’t get a flight until much later. However, she had her PR people call up various guests and look after them with Kangana herself dropping in at both screenings at some stage. It was evident that the new film was important for her, especially since it was a solo show for her and she wanted to collect as many reactions as she could.
This is the kind of professional interest that heroes have so far shown in their films with heroines walking through their parts most of the time. It is a sign of changing times in the Hindi film industry that the actresses too, are gathering a team of professionals around them who handle their PR and their business interests with efficiency. The girls are also going all out to gather favourable reviews for themselves (reviews that talk of performance and go beyond the wardrobe). Since the stakes have become really high, they too seek the kind of media coverage that will constantly prop them up as the best in the business. It’s a pleasant change because so far actresses only bothered about what her rival was wearing in a film.
It’s a change that Shahid Kapoor has noticed and he fully endorses the new age heroine when he says, “Women have become the stronger, superior sex.” Perhaps he’s spotted the power exuded by neighbour and close friend Priyanka Chopra and has a grudging admiration for it.
Don’t be surprised if the next awards season finds the women competing as fiercely as the men normally do to take home the Best Actress trophy. It’s a rivalry that the men indulged in all these years (right from the halcyon days of Filmfare), and soon the actresses will also get into the act. As it is, Kareena Kapoor is rumoured to have orchestrated her trophy for Jab We Met.
This year, there was a marked battle between Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan with both of them playing disabled heroes in My Name Is Khan and Guzaarish, respectively. Before leaving for a big awards ceremony, Hrithik even tweeted excitedly that he was going to wear his best suit in the hope that his most prestigious performance ever would bag the Best Actor award. He didn’t get it and SRK went home with it for his turn in Karan Johar’s film. Extremely disappointed, Sussanne Roshan had promptly tweeted that they had just returned from the function and couldn’t understand how awards went to the undeserving. Sharp words that fortunately didn’t escalate into a war of words between Khan and Roshan mainly because the former does not tweet anymore. Also, over the years all of them have become such close friends that winning or losing a trophy is but a passing irritation. So, after voicing their disappointment, it was back to normal as Sussanne even went to a party hosted by KJo for their victory at the awards function!
People close to Hrithik say that the actor puts his money where his mouth is. When he put out statements that playing Ethan, his character in Guzaarish, was a life-changing assignment, he also swept aside talk of its commercial failure by saying that sometimes trade did not figure when it came to art. When Sanjay Leela Bhansali had said something similar that he made movies, not money, he’d got a lot of flak from people who retorted, ‘Then why did Sanjay take a fee of Rs 27 crore for directing Guzaarish? If he makes movies, not money, he should’ve done it free of charge!’ The same charge, however, cannot be levelled at Hrithik because a close associate whispers that when the film failed at the box office the actor actually returned most of the money he took for Guzaarish, and went home with barely Rs 4 crore. Ah, that finally sounds like someone who practises what he preaches.
