HRITHIK ROSHAN
In the seven years he has been an actor Hrithik Roshan has already written off twice. Once as a fluke when his debut film Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai 2000, was followed by a succession of flops. And then again as Daddy’s boy when Koi Mil Gaya 2003, worked at the box-office seeming to prove that the son was good only when his father Rakesh Roshan director of the film delivered. But dhoom-2 2006, in which he played a super-thief who gets the most effective lines and the best looking girl has firmly re-established that tag with which he burst on to the screen that of sex god and pin-up boy. Roshan has survived the breathless hype and the bad press to emerge as an acting thoroughbred who may not run too many races he has done only thirteen movies in seven years but times to win them all. As son of actor-director Rakesh Roshan Hrithik is a Bollywood insider. His mother is the daughter of film maker J. Om Prakash his father is the son of music director Roshan, and his uncle Rajesh Roshan is a well known music director His wife Suzanne Khan, is the daughter of actor-director Sanjay Khan. And yet Roshan has brought his very own aura to Bollywood. His chiselled feature and gym-toned physique set new standards in physical appeal when he made his debut which was greeted with an astounding frenzy of female adulation. Roshan made his debut in the same year as his stiffest sompetitor Abhishek Bachchan but while his career sky-rocketed immediately Bachchan’s sputtered for four years before finally talking off.
Roshan’s career has been remarkable for the consciousness he has brought to a new generation of actors about looking good. The greatest male Hindi film stars have not been conventionally handsome. The romantic heroes of the 1990’s Shah Rukh Khan Aamir Khan and Salman Khan are good looking men in their own ways but lack for instance the imposing height with witch Amitabh Bachchan bestrode most of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Roshan has the brawniness of Sanjay Dutt’s and a particular charm that is his own. He has the ability to romance like a poet, dance like a dream and fight like a soldier. It is a hard-won combination of skills earned through five years of elocution lessons to overcome his stutter acting and dance classes and even horse riding practice all the hard his twin roles in the film Roshan got a chance to play a sweet soulful singer in Mumbai rohit who is shot dead by two corrupt policemen, as well as his smooth suave look-alike in New Zealand, Raj Chopra who nails the killer.
Though Roshan’s carefully chosen movies he has worked with the finest directors currently making film in Bollywood from Suraj Barjatya to Karan Johar have not always resulted in big hits, he has always shown a willingness to go the distance to make a movie work. For instance he learnt martical arts for almost a month for his role as a super hero in the sci-fi Krrish 2006, also directed by his father and trained with Army cadets for the role of a young soldier in Lakshay 2004,.It is obsession with detail his quest for perfection that has earned Roshan laurels.
He has learnt that hard way that the beaten path is not for him. His attempts to play a lover-boy in Armani suits and coiffed hair has only drawn mockery from critics whether it is the flop Na Tum Jaano Na hum 2002, or even the successful Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham 2001, It is when he has taken a leap that the has been rewarded whether it is as the mentally challenged boy in Koi Mi Gaya the diamond hard villain in Dhoom-2 or a Muslim terrorist in Khalid Mohamed’s Fiza 2000, where he plays a young man takes to violence after the Mumbai blasts of 1993. Now enacting the part of emperor Akbar in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodha Akbar- his first historical role Roshan has been perfecting his riding and sword fighting skills to do it justice. It is a work ethic picked up from watching his father even sweeping his film sets. The Roshan has seen Bollywood at its worst and best when the family should have been enjoying Hrithik’s tremendous they had to cope with an assassination attempt, through thick and thin, in trouble and in joy. There is no reason to think that the newest Roshan on the block will not take that legacy of professionalism forward.