Package deals on show

Once you walk out of a movie theatre, you get to hear all kinds of remarks and observations.
���The actor looked so hot in the movie!��� ���He has the perfect six-pack abs.��� ���He is a much better dancer than his father.��� ���He isn���t all that great to look at, but has a great body!��� ���Isn���t he amazing with all those stunts and the way he fights?���
Gone are the days when actors like Jeetendra and Shammi Kapoor could get away without pumping iron (since that was Dara Singh���s job!).Anil Kapoor didn���t mind being hairy scary, and neither did the audience. Nobody really cared if Sanjay Dutt looked funny with his awkward dance in Tamma Tamma Loge. The lesser said about Sunny Deol���s fancy footwork, the better!
In order to be a good actor today, you need to be a complete ���package���. A package would include Greek God looks and, of course, a great body ��� six-pack abs et al. Shaved chest and legs get you brownie points. Fighting skills are absolutely essential, since the heroes must fight the bad guys. Apart from that, being a good dancer is mandatory if the actor wishes to do his fair share of ���item numbers���. Amidst the hullabaloo surrounding all these add-ons, the innate skill of acting seems to be getting the least importance.
���Times are changing,��� says actor Mohan Agashe. He believes that to be a good actor, performing skills are necessary, and one needs to be a jack of all trades. ���The entertainment industry is dominated by business. The actors seem to have different reasons for pursuing acting. There is acting for the love of acting, and giving respect to it, acting to earn money and become rich and famous, acting for survival. Actors are grooming themselves accordingly. It also depends on the audience. Some people like to watch serious acting, whereas some want to see looks and dance,��� he opines.
Looks like the New Age actors are just trying to meet public demand, which is changing with the times. Yesteryear actress Poonam Dhillon tells us how. ���In our times, we learnt on the job.
Actors today are professionally trained. If that doesn���t happen, then the actor gets extremely self-conscious which is detrimental. But, training in dance, fitness and other things gives you unmatched confidence. Image is very important for which being well-versed in varied skills is required,��� she says. So, does that mean acting is not really important if the rest of the paraphernalia is spectacular? ���Not at all. Look at Sanjeev Kumar or even Kamal Haasan. They never had that perfect body. But they sustained, thanks to their acting skills. So, the foundation will never lose its importance,��� she adds.
Hrithik Roshan and Akshay Kumar are blessed with the complete package. Sensing the need of the times, even SRK has gone for a six-pack look which has got him many young fans. Recently, we have seen many debutants who seem to be more conscious about factors other than acting. ���Even in cricket, people tend to remark about how hot a cricketer looks rather than saying he is an ace bowler or batsmen. So yes, the focus has shifted,��� says Poonam.
It���s agreed that to succeed as an actor, you have to go with the public demand. But, what are the essential ingredients of this ���package���? According to director Jabbar Patel, ���An actor needs to be physically fit. He should know how to dance. It���s even better if he knows different styles of dancing. Dance is, after all, a good form of exercise and also evokes a spiritual feeling. A good actor must know how to talk to his own psyche, needs to have a good speech pattern, a good body language, and a good analysis of character.���
Who doesn���t like to see a good-looking hunk move to interesting beats? Who wouldn���t mind watching a great looking man kick the bad guys around with interesting Matrix-like moves? But, seriously, would we continuously watch a muscular hunk, who dances better than John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but has the same expression throughout the movie, and even sounds like he is reciting a 4th standard poem? The choice is yours.