The Hindi film industry is seeing a scenario when most of its leading actors have crossed 40 or are on the verge of doing so. But surprisingly, most of these mature actors seem to be having the time of their lives as their careers are going great and they are receiving some of the best roles of their lives.

Let's begin with Amitabh Bachchan; his days of being the angry young man are long over but he is still given roles which any actor would like to dig his teeth into. Take his soon to be released 'Paa', or even 'Rann' or 'Teen Patti'. In the recent past, he did different kind of roles in films like 'Bhootnath', 'Sarkar', 'Cheeni Kum', and even 'Aladin'. The Big B is having the time of his life with such a variety of roles on his plate. An actor like Sanjay Dutt too is enjoying his second coming. He is flooded with offers and has an interesting role coming up in 'Lamhaa'. Salman Khan seems to have suddenly found himself all over again with 'Wanted', while Saif Ali Khan too is managing to stretch his boundaries with films like 'Love Aaj Kal' and the forthcoming 'Kurbaan'. Shah Rukh Khan will be playing a very different character in Karan Johar's 'My Name Is Khan'. And finally Aamir Khan. This is an actor who has really reinvented himself. He has the ability to get into any role and become that person. If one looks at the promos of Raju Hirani's '3 Idiots', the Khan is looking like any regular 20 year old. The older he gets, the better he seems to become as an actor. That is really the case with most of our leading actors. Their careers seem to have received a fresh lease of life and they only seem to be moving from strength to strength. Either way, in the non 40 category, we only have a handful of actors like Shahid Kapur, Ranbir Kapoor, Abhay Deol and Imran Khan, who really matter, the rest of them all seem to be on the wrong side of 30 or the other side of 40. The older, the better, it seems.