The Dhanush Phenomenon: Masculinity, Vulnerability And Stardom

In an industry still beholden to the template of the brawny, hyper-polished star with impeccable Hindi diction, the presence of Dhanush unsettles the grammar of the Bollywood hero. His performances have helped shape a new template: a regular-bodied protagonist whose grounded presence and emotional intensity offer an alternative to traditional heroic flamboyance. With Tere Ishk Mein (2025) reaffirming his instinct for emotionally charged (yet problematic) characters and Netflix’s Idli Kadai (2025) expanding his creative footprint as a director, Dhanush enters another phase of a career that has already stretched across two cinema cultures.

Over two decades, he has moved through Tamil and Hindi film industries with an ease, fully embracing his journey that has not been linear, but a map of experiments, stumbles, reinventions and the occasional (polite) disturbance in Bollywood’s ideas of masculinity. The compelling detail is that he doesn’t behave like an actor negotiating entry into another industry; he moves as someone for whom the border is barely a fact.

Tamil cinema, though, has historically given him greater thematic depth with characters that move from innocence to brutality or fragility to ferocity with layered narrative justification. His early Tamil roles were often anchored in everyday men navigating moral, emotional or social fractures. “Dhanush plus poverty equals hit film” is a long-running gag but whether bruised, broke, or system-crushed, his men are written in a way that they always carry dignity. In films such as Kadhal Kondein (2003), Pudhupettai (2006), Aadukalam (2011) and Asuran (2019),  he articulates class conflict, caste realities, family structures, political violence, and the psychology of marginalised men. Dhanush isn’t an “unconventional hero” here, but the norm within a realist or neo-realist grammar. In Tere Ishk Mein however, Dhanush slips back into Aanand L Rai’s toxic loverboy framework, revisiting the emotional terrain that audiences first associated him with. Which immediately raises the question: why return to it at all?

Kundan (Raanjhanaa) and Shankar (Tere Ishk Mein) may appear as lovesick figures but their obsession quickly slides into overt misogyny. It also places him in a lineage that recalls R. Madhavan’s early toxic romances, though equating the two oversimplifies the breadth of Dhanush’s craft. His performances capture that slippery slope convincingly, yet that intensity often blurs the line between sincerity and entitlement, which makes the critical interrogation of such roles necessary. Tere Ishk Mein will inevitably work—his fanbase guarantees that—but the choice feels oddly regressive for an actor who has already proved he can handle emotionally intelligent themes, even more so in his directorial work. 

His entrance into Bollywood through Raanjhanaa (2013) was framed as an aberration—channelling a certain masculinity that sympathised with problematic men. But his acting prowess along with A.R. Rahman’s music really struck a chord. He embodied a small-town lover with a mix of stubborn devotion and moral failure, and gifted the Hindi audience a character they did not know how to categorise. That confusion worked quite in his favour as he got to explore his range in Bollywood further. Despite emerging from the Tamil industry, his seamless embodiment of a UP boy quite impressed audiences.  The arc continued with Shamitabh (2015) and Atrangi Re (2021), where he moved away from romance to the thriller and comedy genre, all while retaining the understated performance style that distinguishes him from other South Indian heroes in Bollywood. 

Dhanush’s trajectory as a playback singer began with “Naatu Sarakku” in Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan (2004), a modest starting point that quietly foreshadowed a career that would later unsettle linguistic and cultural boundaries in Indian music. The breakthrough came with “Why This Kolaveri Di?” from 3 (2012), a “Tanglish” composition whose playful absurdity travelled globally and became the first Indian video to reach 100 million views on YouTube. His continued hold over the musical landscape was reaffirmed with “Rowdy Baby” from Maari 2 (2018), which crossed a billion views in 2020, securing his place among India’s most influential actor-singers.

Across 3 (2012), Vada Chennai (2018), Asuran (2019), and Captain Miller (2023), Dhanush consistently plays men whose choices are shaped as much by systemic pressures as by personal desire. In each, ethical negotiation drives the character, through which various facets of masculinity are tested and exposed to be redefined. Artistic curiosity eventually pushed Dhanush behind the camera, where he demonstrated an instinct for emotional intimacy and narrative control. Dhanush’s directorial debut, Pa. Paandi (2017), was a delicate meditation on a father-son bond. Then followed Raayan (2024) and Idli Kadai (2025), with which he extended this experimentation to direction—both films deal with the push and pull between wealth and poverty and morality and crime.

Across his directorial projects, Dhanush appears to circle back to the dream he set aside before cinema intervened: becoming a chef. Raayan casts him as a food-truck owner, while Idli Kadai positions him within the bustle of an idli shop. Together, they feel like a deliberate space to stage hard-hitting stories around the alternate career that lingered on the periphery of his early ambitions. Dhanush also seems to keep returning to the social drama genre, where he makes his politics quite clear. It makes logical and progressional sense as well for someone who has worked in films like Kuberaa (2025), which dealt with morality, wealth and power, along with Vaathi (2023), which explored systemic corruption in education and Karnan (2021) that spoke about caste violence. 

When he appeared in The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir (2018) and The Gray Man (2022), many expected him to chase the clichéd “crossover” dream. Instead, he gained immense popularity and appreciation for being Chris Evans’ “sexy Tamil friend”, in his own words. His global foray mattered less for representation and more for demonstrating that an actor can expand his geography without abandoning his foundation.

At the same time, he is scrutinised the way all unconventional male stars are—through questions about his looks and his personal life. Multiple industries, multiple genres, and a filmography that spans street-level realism, neo-noir, romantic drama, political thriller and comedy—his versatility is no longer a compliment but cold, hard evidence.

His personal life and marriage with Aishwarya Rajnikanth were consumed by the public with predictable curiosity. Yet, unlike many stars, his career did not collapse under tabloid pressure. The audience treated his personal turbulence as a separate narrative—partly because his performances continued to hold their own weight, and partly because he never weaponised the public gaze. Although, in a recent press conference, Dhanush described love as an overrated emotion—a remark quickly linked to his personal life. The statement struck some as contradictory: a star often associated with romantic, virtuous on-screen heroes publicly dismissing the very emotion that defines much of his cinematic persona.

Across industries and decades, one pattern persists: Dhanush is drawn to the psychology of men who struggle with belonging. These characters are not exactly villains, rarely perfect, and rarely uncomplicated. In the domains of Tamil, Hindi and now international cinema, Dhanush has created archetypes of his own—reframing masculinity through a lens that reflects rawness, yet still upholds certain patriarchal & misogynistic values. With rumours of his next Hollywood outing Street Fighter (year unconfirmed), he seems to be stepping into a phase where the pressure to prove anything has eased. But it is usually in such seasons of an artist’s life that the work turns unexpectedly compelling.

Tere Ishk Mein is drawing immense affection and audience devotion and it only feels fair to hope that Dhanush continues reaching for the artistic standard he has been steadily shaping in regional cinema, both on screen and in the stories he directs, because nostalgia may be comforting but he has always been capable of much more.