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[Aamir Khan (above), whose new film Ghajini will be out next week, is the latest Bollywood actor to have hit the gym.]
Mumbai - Bollywood's leading actors are hitting the gym as never before, adding brawn and biceps to their on-screen repertoires and winning a legion of new fans in the process.
The latest weight-training convert is Aamir Khan, who enlisted the help of physical trainer Satyajit Chourasia two years ago to get in shape for the film Ghajini, to be released on Dec 25.
His daily four-hour regimen appears to have paid off. Giant advertising hoardings show a shaven-headed Khan stripped to the waist, exposing a finely ripped torso. In the movie, which resembles Memento (2000), he plays a man with memory loss who tattoos himself and takes Polaroid pictures to remember people and places.
The 43-year-old said the film's director, A. Murgadoss, told him to bulk up because it was essential for the character.
'I too felt that I will not be able to do justice to my role if I am not in this shape,' he said this week.
Asked whether his new look could help boost box-office takings, he said it was creating 'a lot of buzz among viewers, which is good for the film'.
Historically, the muscle-bound hero has never been in vogue in Bollywood. Instead, leading men were as likely to be measured by the manly thickness of their chest hair or how they carried a tune or moved in song and dance routines.
Eyeing the success of Hollywood's Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1980s, Bollywood's Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt began working out, winning accolades and a dedicated fanbase. But it was not until megastar Shah Rukh Khan got a 'six pack' for his 2007 blockbuster Om Shanti Om that muscle tone became a must for aspiring Bollywood actors.
Actor John Abraham enlisted the help of Hollywood personal trainer Mike Ryan to prepare for appearing on camera in only a pair of swimming trunks on Miami beach in the film Dostana, which was released in October. 'I went on high protein and vigorous training to get that kind of look,' the actor said.
But having a perfect physique can have its disadvantages.
British director Danny Boyle has said that casting a Bollywood beefcake as the lead in his hit film Slumdog Millionaire would not have worked, even though Indian actors had the talent. Instead he cast a skinny British Asian actor, Dev Patel.
He told The Huffington Post on Nov 25: 'You know when guys can't put their arms down cause they have all this muscle mass? They're 18, they're only just beyond kids - and their heads are really small.
'They haven't put any weight on their heads. So you've got these tiny little heads and big bodies, that was just wrong for the film.'
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