Transgender people have a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth. Living a life of the third gender is difficult in a world full of social barriers but still, the country has witnessed many trans personalities who stood for their rights and worked towards social causes. Even in the Indian cinema there are many films and television shows with transgender people and transgender fictional characters. In such films, great actors and actress took a break from their usual action romantic acting films and taken the challenge to portray transgender characters in the film and series. So today let's have a look at Indian celebs who played the role of a transgender on screen.
Riddhi Sen is a Bengali actor who received more praise for her role as a trans woman in the Bengal language film, 'Nagarkirtan'. In the film, Riddhi Sen portrayed the role of Parimal, a trans woman from rural Bengal who runs away from home and joins a ghetto of eunuchs as Puti and sings at traffic signals to earn money.
People may forget 2013 Kangana Ranaut's 'Rajjo' but still they remember Mahesh Manjrekar's transgender character 'Begum' who runs a Kotha. The film is a romantic musical journey of Rajjo and tells the love story of Rajjo (Kangana Ranaut) and Chandu (Paras Arora) set against the backdrop of the dying Kothas of Mumbai that nurtured the traditional art of singing and dancing for centuries. In the film, Mahesh brilliantly adapts the accent and form of a transgender.
Prakash Raj has acted in several Hindi, Tamil and Telugu films and received many appreciations for the same. In 2000, the actor was seen in the Tamil remake of Hindi film 'Sadak' (1991) in which he portrayed the role of Maharani which was played by Sadashiv Amrapurkar in the original film.
Known as an actor, director, composer, dancer and playback singer Raghava Lawrence played the transgender character in the 'Kanchana' film franchise. The film revolves around Raghava, who is scared to venture outside gets possessed by a transgender spirit.
In 2011, Prashant Narayanan appeared in the role of Dheeraj Pandey in the film Murder 2. In the film, he played a straight man turned eunuch and psychopath serial killer, who pretends as a customer to call-girls and kills them mercilessly. The film turned out to be a success and one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films of 2011, where Narayanan's role was highly acclaimed by the critics and public alike.
TV host and model who has appeared in the films 'Sultan', 'Ready' and 'City Of Life', Kubra Sait was praised for her role as a transgender woman named Kukoo in the Netflix show 'Sacred Games'. The actress received several critical acclaim for her acting. Sait also represented Sacred Games at the Emmy Awards, held on 25 November 2019.
Paresh Rawal is known for portraying villainous and comedian roles on-screen and has received wide recognition. But the actor has also added a critically acclaimed transgender character to his filmography. The actor played the role of transgender Tikku in Mahesh Bhatt's drama film, 'Tamanna'. The film revolves around Tikku who found a girl child in a garbage bin and adopt her later.
Sadashiv Amrapurkar's dialogue delivery was considered unique as compared to the popular Hindi movie villains in the late 80's and 90's. But for his villainous role in Mahesh Bhatt's drama film, Sadak, he won the Best Villain award in 1991. The actor was praised for his top-notch acting skills in the Maharani's character who was a transgender and runs a brothel.
Vijay Sethupathi's role as Shilpa in 'Super Deluxe', was so appreciated that in 2019, Film Companion ranked Sethupathi's performances in the list of 100 Greatest Performances of the decade. The film revolves around the life of four people including Shipa story in which his wife Jyothi and her son Rasukutty are awaiting the return of Rasukutty's father Manickam, who abandoned the family seven years ago. One day, Manickam arrives from Mumbai as a trans woman named Shilpa.
'Laxmmi Bomb' is an official remake of the Tamil horror flick 'Kanchana: Muni 2'. In the film for the first time, Akshay portrays the role of a man possessed by the spirit of a transgender name Laxmmi.