New Delhi,  When mainstream superstar Akshay Kumar takes up playing a transgender in "Laxmmi Bomb", you know change is happening in commercial Bollywood. Once upon a time, Bollywood heroism was about hypermasculinity, machismo and testosterone, and about following the formula of a guy saving a girl from five men and the two eventually falling in love. Now, mainstream actors are increasingly in the mood to experiment, and cross-gender roles -- where actors and actresses go for a gender reversal with the characters they portray -- are becoming commonplace.

Experiments as these in the past were restricted to supporting cast or arthouse actors. Forget playing the transgender, even cross-dressing appearances of leading men in commercial cinema was a rare incidence, mostly restricted to song-and-dance sequences. Who can forget Amitabh Bachchan's cross-dressing gig "Mere angane mein" in "Laawaris" or Aamir Khan's "Dole dole" in "Baazi". Shah Rukh Khan in "Duplicate" and Salman Khan in "Hum Aapke Hain Koun!" had brief appearances as cross-dressers, and Kamal Haasan in "Chachi 420" or Govinda in "Aunty No.1" were essentially male characters that dressed as women driven by a reason in the story.

Cross-dressing, as well as transgender roles, were mostly restricted to character artistes such as Sadashiv Amrapurkar ("Sadak"), Prashant Narayan ("Murder 2") and Ravi Kishen ("Bullett Raja"). 

IANS looks at some of the Bollywood actors who are set to play the other gender, and also those who have made a mark in the past with transgender or crossdressing gigs in the past.



* Akshay Kumar

Bollywood's very own 'Khiladi' will be seen playing a character possessed by a transgender spirit in the upcoming film "Laxmmi Bomb". In an early photograph of the film, Akshay was seen applying kohl in his eyes. In another image he sports a saree. The film is slated to hit the screens on June 5, 2020.