There were two incidents in recent months in which top stars displaced less popular performers in what are considered prestigious projects.

Aishwarya Rai went after the lead role in Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali, grabbing it from Nandita Das. Similarly, Kareena Kapoor evinced interest in Anant Balani's Chameli and replaced Antara Mali. Femina Miss India-Universe Neha Dhupia bagged the main role in Deepak Shivdasani's Julie from relatively new actresses who had earlier been approached for it. Karisma Kapoor is reportedly doing Vinta Nanda's film which earlier starred Nandana Dev Sen. Interestingly, two of the characters are prostitutes and one a widow in 19th century Bengal.

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A sort of trend is discernible here, not entirely new, but catching on rapidly. As various market conditions lead to the rise of non-formula filmmaking even in mainstream cinema, actors in general and actresses in particular are getting to play characters they may never have been offered before. Even Juhi Chawla, who earlier professed disdain for 'art' cinema, deglamorised herself for Nagesh Kukunoor's 3 Deewarein and Sujoy Ghosh's Jhankaar Beats.

Two of the busiest and most popular female stars, Aishwarya Rai and Kareena Kapoor, are actively pursuing and snatching the best roles available for women in mainstream as well as offbeat films. If Aishwarya has Gurinder Chadha, Ketan Mehta, Rajkumar Santoshi, Rituparno Ghosh; Kareena has Deepa Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Mani Ratnam, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Madhur Bhandarkar.

With Raveena Tandon, Rani Mukerji, Urmila Matondkar, Manisha Koirala, Sushmita Sen and Karisma Kapoor carving up the rest, there is hardly any worthwhile role left for actresses like Tabu and Nandita Das. These two devoted some quality career time to working with offbeat filmmakers, who dumped them when bigger, better stars went out of the way to accommodate smaller films where the challenging roles lie.

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Winning the National Award now seems to be a major obsession with stars.

Industry folk may say women-oriented films have no value, but there is something about them that tempts top actresses. It also means that directors pump up their projects a bit in the market with star power without considerably boosting budgets, since actresses are willing to cut fees for good roles.

It is easier for an actress to extend her career span by doing this because her time as a glamorous heroine is shorter than a male star's shelf life as leading man. Urmila Matondkar (Bhoot, Tehzeeb, Pinjar) reinvented herself when the sex symbol label started to wear thin.

None of the male stars would cut their fees to star in offbeat films no matter how great the role. The way the economics and other machinery around a male star works, a small-budget filmmaker would not even get past the star's secretary. If the star does actually listen to the script, the small filmmakers would probably get dates ten years later.

If Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and others do 'different' films, they also take their pound of flesh, secure in the knowledge that even if their films flop, their star aura will see them through the next five years at least.  Even when Shah Rukh and Hrithik were down, they had producers patiently waiting for dates.

But a few flops and Kareena quickly shifted tracks to the Chameli kind of film and actually met Deepa Mehta to ask for a role in her next film. Would Hrithik Roshan ever walk up to even, say, an M Night Shyamalan to ask for a role? Not likely. He did turn down then flavour of the season Tarsem Singh two years ago when he sent him feelers for an Indianised Hamlet.

Special roles are written for top male stars and producers have to scrounge for money to pay their huge prices. With actresses, the process is easier. Obviously, a filmmaker would like to cast a Kareena Kapoor over an Antara Mali if s/he could afford it.

Over the next few months, audiences will see glamorous heroines play a variety of roles, while heroes will play heroes (soldier, revolutionary, do-gooder) with just a change of hairstyle and costume.

The girls may earn less, but seem to be having more fun.

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