As Hollywood brings more Indian and Asian characters into its stories, established stars in India are now looking for a career in the West, hoping to make it big in an industry Bollywood looks up to for inspiration.
Slumdog Millionaire actor Anil Kapoor has landed a role in the next Mission Impossible film, while Irrfan Khan, who worked with Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, has bagged roles in both the next Spiderman film and Ang Lee's forthcoming Life of Pi, Indian media reported.
Success is not limited to the men. Bipasha Basu, who as one of Bollywood's most popular leading ladies also has her eyes set westwards, has won a role in Academy Award winning director Roland Joffe's next film, Singularity.
"The Indian audience is increasing every day, not just in India, which is one of the fastest growing movie markets, but also in the US," said casting director Uma D'Cunha, who helped Joffe zero in on Basu.
Indian connect
"Indian audiences would watch a Hollywood film with a Bipasha Basu, rather than one that doesn't have an Indian connect," she added, referring to both Indians in their homeland as well as the Indian diaspora.
D'Cunha also said that while the growing Indian market will mean that there will be more roles for Indians in mainstream Hollywood, the scope of these roles will remain limited.
Indian actors have made sporadic appearances in Western films, but most of them have been bit parts in films that didn't really gain attention.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan acted in a couple of films, as did several other mostly male stars such as Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, but none garnered much acclaim.
While the big 2009 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire, which was released in 2008, changed things a bit by ensuring that the West looked at India for stories, and Indian actors got noticed, plum roles for Indians in Hollywood remain illusive.
Freida Pinto has bagged top roles, first in Slumdog Millionaire and then Woody Allen's You will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger and Juliet Schnabel's Miral.
But limits remain. In this year's big hit The Social Network, director David Fincher chose British actor Max Minghella to play the role of an Indian character.
Indian born US comedian Asif Mandvi, who played the lead role of an Indian chef in Today's Special, said: "Right now it's a post 9/11/Obama/Slumdog Millionaire world and even though India is becoming a major economic power in the world, we should not got too carried away," he said.
"The roles of Indians in Hollywood are still fairly stereotypical for the most part."
