Bollywood stars go regional
Language no longer seems to be a hindrance for mainstream Bollywood stars, as several of them are venturing into regional cinema.
Madhuri Dixit-Nene is doing a slice-of-life Marathi film about a woman’s journey of self-realisation — the language, however, isn’t a barrier for her, as Marathi is her mother tongue. While announcing the film, Madhuri said that she was happy to see the evolution of Marathi cinema and had been waiting for the right project to make her debut.
Vivek Oberoi, who made his Tamil film debut this year with Vivegam, feels that with the success of films like Baahubali (starring Prabhas and Rana Daggubati) and Robot (starring Rajinikanth), the overall viewer attitude towards regional cinema has changed. “It’s time to redefine the term ‘regional cinema’. Thirty to forty years ago, it made sense to use that word. But films like Baahubali, Vivegam, and Robot and its sequel 2.0 are redefining regional cinema. The reach of such films is huge,” says Vivek.
The multilingual sci-fi thriller 2.0, directed by Tamil filmmaker Shankar, also stars Bollywood bigwig Akshay Kumar, yet another example of blurred borders.
Then, Abhay Deol is acting in his maiden Tamil film, Idhu Vedhalam Sollum Kadhai, directed by Rathindran R Prasad.
Calling it a positive trend, filmmaker Priyadarshan says, “We should not call it Bollywood or Tollywood. We should call it Indian films.”
Even young actors, whose Bollywood careers are still in the formative stage, are testing the waters of regional cinema. An example is Shraddha Kapoor, who has joined Prabhas in the trilingual film, Saaho; and Disha Patani, who’s in the Tamil period movie Sangamithra.
Actor Adil Hussain, who has successfully dabbled in films in different languages, says, “We are one country. If more such actors do this, then the market can become so much bigger.”