From Stardom to Statecraft

For India’s film stars, the leap from screen fame to political power has been a journey of triumphs, reversals and occasional second acts.

From Thalapathy on screen, Vijay has taken political centre stage as Tamil Nadu's current Chief Minister.

For an Indian film star, politics can look deceptively familiar. Both trades depend on visibility, crowds and the ability to turn a personal following into collective enthusiasm. But the resemblance ends there as the actor works to a script while the politician eventually has to write one and more importantly, live with its consequences.

The release of Jananayagan, which Thalapathy Vijay has described as his final film before devoting himself fully to politics and public service, therefore carries a significance beyond the box office. If he does indeed stay away from cinema, he will join a small group of Tamil film stars who permanently exchanged the studio for the political arena. M.G. Ramachandran, or MGR, left acting before becoming Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. J. Jayalalithaa, his political protégé, likewise never returned to films after entering politics.

Harnessing Cinematic Capital

Their careers established perhaps the most powerful version of the Indian star-to-politician journey: cinema first creates an extraordinary reservoir of popular recognition; politics then converts it into electoral authority. MGR was not merely a famous actor who became a politician. His screen persona, particularly his recurring image as the protector of the poor and the wronged, became inseparable from his political identity. Jayalalithaa inherited much of that political capital and turned it into a formidable personal organisation.

Yet the MGR-Jayalalithaa template is the exception rather than the rule. For many actors, politics has proved to be an interlude rather than a second career.

MGR turned his turned his vast fan following as a screen icon into enduring political power.

Take Amitabh Bachchan. Few actors entered politics with a larger reservoir of popularity. In 1984, moved by his personal loyalty to Rajiv Gandhi following Indira Gandhi's assassination, Bachchan contested the Lok Sabha election from Allahabad and won by a landslide. But the realities of public life soon proved less congenial than the cinema. The controversy surrounding the Bofors affair contributed to his decision to resign from Parliament before completing his term, although he was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Cinema, by contrast, offered a spectacularly uncomplicated route back. Shahenshah re-established him as a box-office force and opened another successful chapter in his acting career. For Bachchan, politics had been an experiment; cinema remained a profession.

Rajesh Khanna followed a similar, if less dramatic, trajectory. The country’s first great superstar entered politics with enormous public support, but discovered that electoral popularity did not automatically translate into political influence. After narrowly losing to L.K. Advani in 1991, he won a New Delhi by-election the following year and represented the constituency until 1996 as a Congress MP. He subsequently returned to acting, appearing in films such as Sautela Bhai and Aa Ab Laut Chalen, while continuing to campaign for the Congress when required.

Brief Trysts

Dharmendra’s political career was similarly brief. He won the Bikaner Lok Sabha seat for the BJP in 2004 and completed his term, but maintained a low political profile and later acknowledged that active politics was never his real passion. He, too, returned to films.

His son Sunny Deol repeated the experiment in 2019, winning Gurdaspur for the BJP. But criticism of his limited presence in the constituency followed him through his parliamentary tenure. When politics receded, cinema beckoned again. Gadar 2 became one of the biggest hits of his career and, in the process, offered a useful reminder of where a dormant star’s most valuable political asset may actually lie: his ability to command an audience.

Vinod Khanna offers a more interesting model. He had already shown that he could walk away from fame when, in the early 1980s, he left films to follow the spiritual leader Osho. His eventual comeback in Insaaf demonstrated that audiences had not forgotten him. Politics became his next calling. As a BJP leader, he represented Punjab's Gurdaspur constituency several times and served in the Vajpayee government as Union Minister for Culture and Tourism and Minister of State for External Affairs.

But Khanna did not regard politics and cinema as mutually exclusive. He continued to accept carefully selected roles, appearing in films including Dabangg, Tell Me O Kkhuda and Dilwale. He showed that the two careers could coexist, provided neither demanded absolute exclusivity.

Shatrughan Sinha offers an even rarer success story. He built a long political career after entering the BJP, later moving to the Congress and eventually the Trinamool Congress. During the Vajpayee government he served as Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare and for Shipping. He was also associated with efforts that helped the film industry acquire official industry status. Cinema remained an occasional presence, but politics eventually became his principal profession.

Then there is Kamal Haasan, who has rejected the idea that an actor must choose. He formally entered politics in 2018 by launching Makkal Needhi Maiam, presenting himself as an alternative to Tamil Nadu's established parties. His party initially failed to make a major electoral impact, but his alliance with the DMK paved the way for his entry into the Rajya Sabha in 2025.

Haasan has never regarded his political and cinematic identities as contradictory. His films, from Anbe Sivam to Vikram, have frequently engaged with questions of governance, justice and society. Politics has done little to slow his filmmaking either. He remains active on screen and is associated with ambitious projects, including one directed by Nelson Dilipkumar that brings him together with Rajinikanth.

Rajinikanth, meanwhile, represents the political career that never quite happened. For years he kept Tamil Nadu waiting, repeatedly hinting at a political debut before finally announcing plans to contest elections and establishing the Rajini Makkal Mandram. But ill health and the uncertainties surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic led him to withdraw before launching a political party. In 2021 he dissolved the organisation and converted it into a welfare body for his fans.

Freed from political commitments, Rajinikanth returned to cinema with renewed energy, with Jailer 2 among his forthcoming projects.

The contrast is instructive. Cinema can provide the political aspirant with instant name recognition, a loyal fan base and a ready-made language of charisma. It cannot, by itself, provide the less glamorous skills of constituency management, party organisation, legislative work or sustained political negotiation.

That may explain why India’s film-politics crossover has produced such different outcomes. MGR and Jayalalithaa converted stardom into enduring political power. Khanna managed both worlds. Sinha made politics his principal career while retaining a connection with cinema. Bachchan, Khanna, Dharmendra and Sunny Deol discovered that the road back to the studio was easier than the road from the studio to Parliament. Haasan is attempting the most difficult feat of all: doing both simultaneously.

Vijay now faces the most consequential version of the choice. His decision to describe Jananayagan as his final film suggests that he understands politics requires a different kind of commitment. Whether he has genuinely closed the door on cinema, however, is another matter. India’s history of actor-politicians suggests that the final curtain is sometimes only an intermission.

The Women Who Changed the Script

From being MGR’s leading lady and political protégé, J. Jayalalithaa emerged as one of Tamil Nadu’s most formidable political leaders.

Women from the film industry have also had an illustrious record of making the transition from screen to the political arena, with varying degrees of success. Their trajectories reveal another truth that political longevity depends less on celebrity than on the ability to build an organisation and acquire an identity beyond the screen.

The most consequential example is J. Jayalalithaa. She entered public life in 1982 at MGR’s invitation, quickly became a key figure in the AIADMK and, after his death, emerged as the party’s principal leader. She eventually served six terms as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Unlike most celebrity politicians, she did not remain an actor dabbling in politics; she transformed herself into a political institution.

Hema Malini took a slower route. After campaigning for BJP leader Vinod Khanna in 1999, she formally joined the BJP in 2004 and later entered the Lok Sabha from Mathura, where she has represented the constituency for successive terms.

Jaya Bachchan entered Parliament in 2004 as a Samajwadi Party member of the Rajya Sabha. An office-of-profit controversy briefly cost her membership in 2006, but she returned to the Upper House the same year and was subsequently re-elected in 2012, 2018 and 2024.

Jaya Prada moved from Telugu cinema into the Telugu Desam Party in 1994 at the invitation of N.T. Rama Rao. She later joined the Samajwadi Party, winning the Lok Sabha election from Rampur in 2004 and again in 2009.

Others had shorter or more specialised political careers. Nagma joined the Congress in 2004, campaigned extensively and contested from Meerut in 2014. Kirron Kher joined the BJP in 2009 and won Chandigarh in 2014 and again in 2019. 

Moon Moon Sen entered politics through the Trinamool Congress and won Bankura in 2014, defeating veteran CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharia, before losing from Asansol in 2019. Gul Panag contested Chandigarh for the Aam Aadmi Party in 2014 but did not win.

Ramya, or Divya Spandana, provides a different example. She won a parliamentary by-election from Mandya at a relatively young age and later headed the Congress's digital communications and social-media outreach.

Smriti Irani traded television stardom for politics to build a formidable career in the BJP.

Smriti Irani’s journey was even more striking. A television star before joining the BJP in 2003, she rose through the party to hold several Union ministerial portfolios between 2014 and 2024. Her 2019 defeat of Rahul Gandhi in Amethi transformed her from a celebrity politician into a national political figure.

The lesson for women is much the same as for their male counterparts. Stardom may open the door. But it does not guarantee that a politician will be able to stay inside.

The Long Road Back to the Camera

Amitabh Bachchan’s landslide victory in 1984 was followed by a brief and turbulent political career.

For every star who turns politics into a lifelong vocation, there are others who discover that the pull of cinema is stronger than the attractions of public office. The reasons vary: electoral politics can be unforgiving, constituency work is less glamorous than a film set, and celebrity does not necessarily translate into legislative influence.

Amitabh Bachchan’s return remains the classic example. His political career began with a landslide and ended before his parliamentary term was complete. Cinema welcomed him back with Shahenshah, and he went on to build one of the most durable second acts in Indian screen history.

A successful film star, Sunny Deol found electoral politics less enduring than cinema.

Rajesh Khanna also returned after his years as a Congress MP. Dharmendra, after completing his term as Bikaner’s BJP MP, resumed acting. Sunny Deol followed his father into Parliament and later back to the screen, where Gadar 2 dramatically revived his commercial fortunes.

Vinod Khanna was different. His political responsibilities did not end his film career; he simply became selective. His experience suggests that the choice need not always be binary.

Rajinikanth’s story is more unusual because the political career remained hypothetical. After years of anticipation, health concerns and the pandemic persuaded him not to launch a party. His fans' political organisation was eventually converted into a welfare body, leaving the actor free to concentrate on cinema.

Kamal Haasan has chosen the opposite route, refusing to surrender either identity. His politics informs his films, while his cinema continues alongside his political activity.

This history makes Vijay’s proposed farewell particularly intriguing. Indian stars have announced departures from cinema before, only to discover that the camera retains a powerful gravitational pull. Politics may be a new calling, but cinema has a long memory and so do audiences.