‘Senior citizens’ Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan show no signs of slowing down: 60 is the new 40 for Bollywood’s male stars

60, and you’re out

Male actors have relatively enjoyed longer shelf lives for their careers. But the conventional perception of a man turning 60 made the biggest of big stars submit to the twilight. Sample arguably the biggest Indian star of the last millennium — Amitabh Bachchan. His downfall started even before he hit 50. Having enjoyed the peak of his career in its first decade itself, Bachchan was juggernaut of star in the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s.

But a number of factors — including his political entry and subsequent controversy, inability to adapt to the VHS era, and India’s desperate cries for fresh blood — slowly and surely sidelined him as a star. Even when he won a National Award for Shahenshah (1988) and a brief resurgence post his Coolie accident recovery in 1982, Bachchan was reduced to an outdated star, particularly in the 1990s after the advent of younger, romantic leads like the three Khans.

By the time Bachchan was 60, he had already seen his lowest of lows and even bounced back from it. The cost? He had to, in conventional terms, settle for a “lesser” medium that was television as the host of Kaun Banega Crorepati. The TV success didn’t translate into movies either unless he volunteered to take up the role of, ironically, an outworn ideologue pitted against a younger iconoclast (Shah Rukh) in Aditya Chopra’s 2000 romantic drama Mohabattein.

Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in a still from Mohabbatein

Bachchan did star in a few films as the lead actor, but could never strike success consistently. He evolved into a character actor, much like Rishi Kapoor. Three years after starring as the leading man in Yash Chopra’s 1989 romance Chandni, Rishi was completely overshadowed by Shah Rukh in the latter’s 1992 debut film, Raj Kanwar’s Deewana.

Rishi gradually transitioned from the second romantic lead in the 1990s to a character actor in the 2000s. By the time he turned 60, he displayed immense range in the same year of 2012 — as the formidable villain Rauf Lala in Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath, as the hilarious Chintu Kapoor in Sajid Khan’s Housefull 2, and as the bubbling principal Yogi in Karan Johar’s Student of the Year.

If we discuss Akbar and Anthony, can Amar be far behind? Vinod Khanna lost his thriving career to his break from films to pursue spirituality at Osho’s ashram in the mid-1980s. He did return with much fanfare, but the momentum was short-lived. When he turned 60 in 2006, he was the least successful of the three, doing one forgettable film after another, registering his presence only in anomalies like Salman Khan’s Wanted (2009) and the Dabangg franchise, riding on the star’s success.

In the last decade of his career, Rishi Kapoor maintained that he didn’t want to do films as the lead actor because they’re unable to secure financial backing, unless they have more bankable stars like the three Khans. Even the next crop of lead actors after Rishi’s generation — Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, and Sanjay Dutt — have found their niche as either character actors or antagonists in South Indian tentpoles.

The only exception is Sunny Deol, 68, who had a resurgence with Anil Sharma’s 2023 action film Gadar 2. He couldn’t recreate the same effect with Jaat earlier this year, but may crystallize his redemption with Border 2 next month. However, unlike Sunny, who hadn’t delivered a hit in over a decade before Gadar 2, the three Khans have sustained their stardom through highs and lows far more consistently in the past 30-35 years.

60 is the new 40 for the Khans

Firstly, the three Khans debuted at a time when India was getting liberalised. A new generation of the audience wanted to watch themselves on screen, and they found resonance in the three Khans bubbling with youthful verve. Romantic films carried them through for a decade and a half in the 1990s and early 2000s, but the new millennium brought fresher challenges.

After the 35-year mark, whether it was Bachchan or Rishi Kapoor, all of them had started to show signs of a burnout. That also had to do with the quantity of films each actor was doing at a time, which went upto even more than a dozen. Aamir was the first lead actor to take the then-considered suicidal move of doing only one film at a time. When the industry raised eyebrows at him, he proved them wrong and how, with the historic success of Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan in 2001.

Aamir Khan in a still from Lagaan. (Credit: IMDb)

As corporates entered India in the early 2000s, it led to the streamlining of the film industry, allowing not only Aamir, but also other lead actors like Shah Rukh and Salman to do fewer films at a time. But with corporatization came new challenges of adapting to an audience that demanded more, in terms of both quality of films and degree of craft.

Thus came the biggest challenge for Salman, who had a bit of rough patch in the early 2000s. His complacency was flagged by father and veteran screenwriter Salim Khan who asked him to pull up his socks as the eldest son of the family. With a conscious approach of identifying his single-screen audience and catering to them unapologetically, Salman bounced back with blockbusters like Dabangg, Wanted, and Bharat.

Salman Khan in a still from Dabangg. (Photo: Express Archive)

Shah Rukh’s litmus test came only post 2015 with duds like Fan (2016), Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017), and Zero (2018). Around those years, Shah Rukh had claimed that the definition of stardom has changed from mystery to accessibility. He hailed social media influencers as the stars of the next generation since they’re more accessible and relatable.

Shah Rukh probably followed the same mantra, making himself available across all media — in films, advertisements, at events, weddings and in media interviews. It was only when he took a break from the movies in 2019, followed by a period of introspection during the Covid-19 pandemic, that he devised a new approach.

He reinvented himself on not only the big screen — through an action-packed avatar with films like Pathaan and Jawan — but also outside of movies by becoming completely inaccessible. He stopped giving interviews, began taking much longer on each film, and often hid his face from the paparazzi, completely starving the whole movie-watching country of Shah Rukh Khan content.

Thanks to this lack of exposure, every Ask SRK session on X would go viral, and every new film, including his next King, would become the talk of the town. Not showing up for Shah Rukh Khan became a crime in the court of FOMO. It took him a few years, but he’s now the most successful of the Khan triumvirate.

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Aamir, on the other hand, is going to the other end and making himself extremely accessible, like how Shah Rukh once was. And Salman — well, Salman is still in his unbothered era, which goes well with his image of an unassumingly arrogant star. It’s tough to say whether even after the success of Animal and Dhurandhar, a Ranbir Kapoor or a Ranveer Singh would be able to match that level of superstardom at 60. But in case they do, they know who to thank for paving the way.