Actresses paired up with younger heroes

Aakanksha Naval-Shetye (DNA; February 20, 2013)

Bollywood heroes have always worked with actresses younger than them by a decade or so. With most of our top heroes in their 40s, you'd think that our leading ladies didn't stand a chance of being paired with someone their age, leave alone younger. But that's what is happening now.

A close look reveals that this year most of our top heroines too are working with actors younger than them. Although it all started last year with a few stray cases like Rani Mukerji being pitted against a younger Prithviraj in Aiyya and Kareena Kapoor opposite Imran Khan in Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, this year most releases will see actresses breaking the age barriers unabashedly. In some cases, the age bar is almost invisible but it is a definite change from the existing scenario of 20-plus actress and 40-plus actor.

One reason why this is happening is that the actresses at the top ' Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra ' are all in their 30s(Hain? yeh kab hua😆). Gone are the days when an actress on the other side of 29 was considered 'untouchable'. Now you have a 37-year-old Ameesha Patel gearing up to share screen space with a 31-year-old Neil Nitin Mukesh in Shortcut Romeo. After Kareena and Imran's movie hit bull's eye last year, the jodi is being repeated in Karan Johar's Gori Tere Pyaar Mein. Priyanka Chopra will be seen with newbies Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, both of them younger to her, in Gunday. Ranveer is once again paired with a professionally senior actor Deepika Padukone in Ram Leela, though they both are of same age. There's not too much of a difference in the ages of Vidya Balan and Emraan Hashmi either who've been paired in Ghanchakkar, but it's there.

Industry observers are calling this age reversal in the case of established actresses, 'a welcome change'. They say that with a handful of the top male stars working with newer faces, the established actresses have the opportunity to work with newer stars too, all thanks to the surge of fresh and promising talent in the past few years. "Today filmmakers want to look beyond the conventional pairing, and most of these A-listers have been paired opposite each other already several times over. So, it's in fact, interesting to see fresh pairings which are also hatke. Besides, these actresses are so well-maintained that age is the last thing that matters about them to the audience," says trade analyst Komal Nahta.

"Most of the senior actors are busy, so these young actors fit the bill for the actresses," say observers. Karan Johar, however, insists that more than the age, the idea is to maintain that youth connect. "In the '60s and '70s there were blockbusters that had senior actress Nanda paired opposite a newer Rajesh Khanna or Asha Parekh being paired with Jeetendra. Even today, I don't think, it has much to do with age. It's about working with potential talent and these are all actors who have already proven their box-office mettle."

Even Preity Zinta will be seen with a much younger hero in her film Ishq in Paris. KJo feels that combining the expertise of senior actresses with fresh potential lends weight to the project. "Besides, Kareena, Priyanka all have such a young demeanor, then why not? There's an entire new batch of young stars that was missing from the scene until recently. This automatically opens the door for some fresh pairing which the filmmmakers want to explore and they are not shying away from the age factor at all. It is also about having a youth connect and widening that brand appeal to cater to larger audience. So it's a win-win situation for all," adds KJo.

Meanwhile, Arshad Warsi is being wooed to pair with Madhuri Dixit in Dedh Ishqiya.