Bollywood, which has of late taken up controversial sex-related topics like gays and live-in relationships, is ready to take the theme forward with two actors agreeing to a 'sex-change' in their upcoming films.

Aftab Shivdasani and Sammir Dattani will play the latest on-screen gender-benders as their films release simultaneously in two different languages early December.

The first one is Antara Mali's directorial debut in Hindi, "Mr Ya Miss" where Aftab plays a roving-eyed jack who dies, goes to heaven and returns to earth as a woman, played by Antara Mali.

The other one is Kannada film "Jackpot" directed by Niranjan. In the film, Sammir - known as Dhyaan in Kannada films - is a playboy who is transformed into a girl by black magic and returns to take on the world.

In both the films, Aftab and Sammir transform into characters played by two different actresses called Antara!

The actors are quite defensive about their roles. Aftab protests: "Let me warn you, I just have a guest appearance in 'Mr Ya Miss'."

"So do I," Sammir echoes. "My role extends only to 15 minutes in 'Jackpot'. After that my character turns into a girl. Actually, I was shooting for a Kannada film, 'Amruthdhare', when the director hijacked me for a week.

"He was keen that I should do this role. And I was also interested in doing it as I don't know when I'd get another chance to play a man who turns into a woman."

Other gender-bender roles that queered up the silver screen are:

In Mahesh Bhatt's "Sadak" (1991): Sadashiv Amrapurkar as the dreaded eunuch pimp.

Mahesh Bhatt's "Tamanna" (1997): Paresh Rawal plays a benign eunuch and brings up Pooja Bhatt as 'his' daughter.

Amol Palekar's "Daayra" (1996): Nirmal Pandey plays the role of a cross- dressing traveller.

Kamal Haasan's "Chachi 420" (1998): Kamal Hasan disguises himself as a nanny to win his wife back.