Bollywood Film Fraternity opens its arms to actors from across the globe. But there is one tag that makes the entry into the Hindi Film Industry a tad bit easier, and that is the Star Kid tag. But having said that, there are many names in industry that have with their hard-work proven that to carve a niche in Bollywood it isn’t necessary to be star kid. Hence the league of self-made actors stepped in.
With the forerunners like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Jeetendra, Vinod Khanna, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, Jackie Shroff among others, the league of self-made actors runs even today with newer names.
Since the Hindi Film era spans over a vast timeline, we shall be considering Star Kids and Self-Made actors 90s onwards.
The glorious 90s:
The era of Dhak-Dhak girl Madhuri, to SRK doing ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ atop a train, to Salman singing ‘Dil Deewana’, to Karisma dancing to “Sexy Sexy Mujhe Log Bole” the 90s even saw Anil Kapoor and Sridevi rule the era. Also, who can forget “Papa Kehte Hai” star Aamir emerging as the new-age romantic hero or Govinda making all dance along-with his expressive moves.
| Starkids Vs. Self-Made Actors (90s) | |
| Star Kids | Self-Made |
| Anil Kapoor | Madhuri Dixit |
| Govinda | Shah Rukh Khan |
| Sanjay Dutt | Akshay Kumar |
| Salman Khan | Juhi Chawla |
| Aamir Khan | Aishwarya Rai now Bachchan |
| Saif Ali Khan | |
| Ajay Devgn | |
| Sunny Deol | |
| Raveena Tandon | |
| Rani Mukherji | |
| Kajol | |
| Karisma Kapoor | |
The era mostly saw Star-Kids rule the box-office as they were more in number. But that doesn’t mean that our self-build actors were behind in any way. In fact, they created frenzy and ruled like bosses.
The colorful 2000s:
We are 15 years into the 2000s and everything is getting more interesting year by year. We have seen Kareena’s Poo-Chameli, Hrithik’s super-cool moves, Abhishek’s Dhoom-Dhamaka, Priyanka Chopra’s desi-girl avatar, Ranbir’s earnest performances, Sonam’s ‘Khoobsoort’i, Deepika’s cocktail of roles, Katrina doing the ‘Namastey London’, Ranveer doing the rex and a lot more, Anushka’s badmashi and jiya re mode, Sonakshi Sinha’s Dabangg-giri, Varun’s cool hero and Badlapur shift, Sidharth’s student gone fighter avatar, Alia’s bubble bee demeanor to Kangana Ranaut’s Queen mode. Since the last decade and a half, we have seen Bollywood growing more and more. And it still has a whole line of newbies waiting to leave their mark.
| StarKids Vs. Self-Made Actors (2000s) | |
| Star Kids | Self-Made |
| Kareena Kapoor | Preity Zinta |
| Hrithik Roshan | Bipasha Basu |
| Abhishek Bachchan | Priyanka Chopra |
| Ranbir Kapoor | Katrina Kaif |
| Shahid Kapoor | Vidya Balan |
| Varun Dhawan | Ranveer Singh |
| Alia Bhatt | Deepika Padukone |
| Sonakshi Sinha | Anushka Sharma |
| Sonam Kapoor | Sidharth Malhotra |
| Kangana Ranaut | |
The 2000s are mixed-bag, with cut-throat competition it becomes really tough to decide who is pacing ahead. With the influx of new talent each passing year from the both star-kids frat and new actors' guild with no Godfathers, Bollywood is ever-growing.
So who do you think made it bigger in Bollywood- StarKids or SelfMade Actors?
Lets us know!