Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan is likely to play the role of a transgender for the first time. While dressing drag on screen is not uncommon for the leading men in Hindi cinema, who do it for comic sequences or songs, it is rare that an actor normally used to playing the hero or a strong male character role has played transgender in a film.
Amitabh Bachchan is rumoured to be playing transgender Laxmi in the remake of Tamil film Kanchana 2 (2015), directed by Raghava Lawrence. Laxmi will be a ghost. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has been signed for the Kanchana 2 remake opposite Kiara Advani. It will be Akshay's character that is possessed by the transgender ghost.
Kanchana 2: Ganga (2015), also known as Muni 3: Kanchana 2: Ganga, is a Tamil horror comedy film written, produced and directed by Raghava Lawrence. The filmmaker also stars in the leading role in Kanchana 2 Tamil, along with Taapsee Pannu, Nithya Menen and Kovai Sarala. Lawrence directed and starred in the 2011 original Kanchana as well, known as Muni 2: Kanchana. The film has been remade in Kannada as Kalpana 2 in 2016.
Actress Kubbra Sait had recently played a transgender called Kukoo in Sacred Games (2018), the hit web series on Netflix made by Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. Kubbra Sait was highly appreciated for her acting and also for taking up the role of a transgender in the first place that could have put her in a bracket.
Vijay Sethupathi had played a transgender successfully and impressively in Thiagarajan Kumararaja's 2019 Tamil film Super Deluxe.
If a legendary actor like Amitabh Bachchan takes on the challenge to play transgender in a film, it will be one of the most difficult and landmark roles of his career. It will create history. Let's wait for a formal confirmation or denial of the film.
