Madhuri Dixit is about to occupy a chair that once helped redefine Amitabh Bachchan’s career. She will host the next season of Kon Honar Crorepati, the Marathi edition of Kaun Banega Crorepati. The assignment follows a run of streaming titles that did not connect strongly, and her pivot toward reality television is the latest proof that there is no single formula for a Hindi film actress who wants to remain relevant.
The old typecast moved faster than the years
In the 1970s, Rakhee was paired with Amitabh Bachchan in Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) and Kaala Patthar (1979). By Shakti (1982), she was playing his mother. The costume has changed more than the logic. Today, an actress who ages out of romantic leads is often handed a melodramatic mother or a hard-bitten cop in a cheaply made thriller. Kajol, Raveena Tandon, Karisma Kapoor, Rani Mukerji, Tabu and Kareena Kapoor have all walked through that gate.
Three ways out of the same role
- Reality television as a reset: Madhuri Dixit is using the Marathi KBC chair to move past forgettable streaming projects.
- Playing her actual age: Tabu has spent 41 years across mainstream Hindi cinema, independent films, global productions and southern languages, and she has said she would not play a 30-year-old on screen now.
- Changing the market: Priyanka Chopra moved to Hollywood and streaming, turned producer with Purple Pebble Pictures in 2015, and is returning to a major Indian project with SS Rajamouli’s Varanasi.
Why this is more than screen time
Tabu has moved between projects such as Haider, Andhadhun, Khufiya and Crew, often playing women whose motives resist easy classification. Vidya Balan made a pregnant woman’s search for her missing husband the engine of Kahaani, and has since carried films including Sherni, Jalsa, Neeyat and Do Aur Do Pyaar; her Jailer 2 appearance extends that run into Tamil cinema.
Not every maternal role is an artistic defeat, just as not every police part is clutter-breaking. The exceptions, such as Mardaani‘s Shivani Shivaji Roy and Drishyam‘s Meera Deshmukh, work because the character is more than the uniform or the relationship.
The most meaningful shift is not that senior actresses are getting more parts. It is that more of them are holding the centre of stories without having to justify their presence through a man, motherhood, sacrifice or a return to youthful desirability. For an industry that long treated a leading woman’s age as an expiry date, that is a substantial change.
Source: CNBCTV18
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