5 Actors Who Are A Better Fit For Bollywood Now Than They Were In The Eras They Started Their Careers

Bollywood is going through a massive change and that is not news. After years of battling with stereotypes and fatigued storylines, Bollywood is finally coming up with content that are new and fresh. While, as audience we could not be more thankful for this transformation, the ones who are reaping the real benefits of these changes are actors who were hungry for roles with newer dimensions that challenged their potential and enables them to explore their entire range.

As a result, some actors who started their careers in earlier eras are now a better fit to Bollywood than they were in their times. Whether it is better roles or just the kind of content that they connect, here are the five mainstream Bollywood actors we are talking about.

Tabu

The actress started her career as early as 1985 with Hum Naujawan and went on to become one of the popular actresses of the 90s Bollywood. While she never left the milieu of mainstream commercial cinema, she balanced it well with parallel choices like Maachis and Astitva. She has always been one actress who has managed to find meaty roles even when the definition of heroines in Indian cinema was akin to that of cotton candy. However, with the kind of refreshing roles that are being written for actresses in mainstream Bollywood films now, Tabu seems like a much better fit than the garish potboilers of the 90s.

 Saif Ali Khan

Foreign-educated and intellectual, Saif Ali Khan’s grand entry into Bollywood happened in 1993 with Aashiq Awaara. Since then his career has been a roller-coaster ride. While he managed to be relevant and even somewhat popular but he never looked comfortable doing the run-of-the-mill Hindi film hero stuff. Saif Ali Khan’s career started to catch new wind with the changing landscape of Bollywood. Saif and his sensibilities and tastes are better reflected in the kind of content that he is doing now and finally we are beginning to realize how criminally underrated he has been as an actor.

Emraan Hashmi

Emraan Hashmi made his debut as a leading man in 2004 with the much-talked-about Murder. He became an instant sensation and the adage of ‘serial kisser’ made him go on a rampage of doing films which where it was difficult to tell his character apart from one another.  It took us a long time to finally realize that his acting chops go beyond smooching the leading ladies and he has himself admitted that he feels that the kind of content he is being a part of now is something that he is more comfortable with and in fact, happier doing.

Rishi Kapoor

This might be a little controversial but hear us out. Rishi Kapoor made his debut as a leading man with the super-hit 1973 and even went on to win the Filmfare Award For The Best Actor. What followed was decades of superstardom and the title of the undisputed chocolate boy that female fans fawned over. He was a Hindi film star in every possible way. But it took till 2012 and Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath to reveal the actor who was somewhat buried under the stardom and gloss. From then on, Rishi Kapoor has surprised us with his acting prowess in almost every venture that he has been a part of that shows that the actor in him is much more satisfied now than he was in the peak  of his stardom.

Akshaye Khanna

Let’s face it, Akshaye Khanna has been one of the most criminally underrated actors in Bollywood. He started his career with Himalay Putra in 1997 and went on to have a roller coaster of a career in Bollywood. His career caught some wind with Dil Chahta Hai but even then he never received the credit that he deserved. It is only now with his performance in films like Mom and Ittefaq he is opening our eyes to the fact that we have been deprived of this talent for more than two decades.