Akshay Kumar: Game changer
From fighting the bad guys and essaying comic roles to doing films based on real life, Akshay Kumar has not just evolved but also hit a purple patch
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Prefer us on GoogleLast Updated: Dec 06, 2018, 10:24 IST9 min
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After an hour, the actor comes out of the studio, rushes to his vanity van, changes from his formal attire into tracks and T-shirt, steps into his SUV and heads for his home in Juhu, roughly 15 kilometres south of Filmcity. “I am extremely sorry for the delay,” he apologies. “I haven’t slept for two days and had to finish a few scenes, so got late.” Visibly drained, the strain of promoting Rajinikanth co-starrer 2.0, India’s costliest movie with a budget of over ₹500 crore, as well as various shooting assignments, including Mission Mangal, is showing on the face of Bhatia, who changed his name to Akshay Kumar in 1987.
The interview begins. Kumar, 51, is distracted. The culprits are not his ardent fans who can’t look through the dark-tinted glasses of his SUV, but the mobile home screen on which the interview is being recorded. “It’s a Phantom,” he smiles. “I used to love this character.” The way Phantom used to fight the baddies, he continues, and stay fit was amazing. “I even loved Tarzan,” he grins, explaining his attachment with the character. “I don’t wear any rings, chains or even a watch. Tarzan too didn’t believe in such things,” he says before breaking into his signature hearty laugh.
“It’s prestigious to be on the Forbes India list,” Kumar cuts to the chase. He’s No 3 on the 2018 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List, behind Indian skipper Virat Kohli and actor Salman Khan. Though he has consistently featured among the top 10 on the list over the years, it’s the first time he’s broken into the top three. “What makes Forbes India unique is that the list is credible and can’t be manipulated like many awards,” he smiles, seemingly, in that moment, savouring the success he’s had over the last few years.
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For an actor who started his career way back in 1991, success remained elusive, and came in patches. The first stroke, though, came early in the second year when the action-thriller Khiladi became a blockbuster. Kumar soon carved a niche for himself with his daredevilry. More hit movies followed. The multi-starrer Mohra (1994) gave him mass appeal. The actor, though, soon hit a rough patch, with 14 consecutive flops between 1997 and 1999. “It was the lowest point in my career,” he says.
Image: Priyanka Parashar / Mint Via Getty ImagesWhat helped him survive was his discipline in finishing movies on time. “In spite of flops, I still had movies,” he says. “I was a producer’s man,” Kumar asserts. The actor has had over 100 releases since 1993, twice the number Shah Rukh Khan has had and over 40 more than Salman Khan.
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Being prolific, however, turned out to be a double-edged sword. Though it helped him survive a string of flops, it also dented Kumar’s image as he indiscriminately accepted movies of all kinds, mostly action flicks. “There have been phases when seven or eight of my movies bombed in a go,” he concedes.
Bold stunts, which helped Kumar create his initial mark in Bollywood, ironically led to his stunted growth as an actor. He was billed as an action hero, producers hounded him with identical scripts and repetitive roles while critics ridiculed him for not being able to ‘act’ and carry movies on his own as most of his success came in multi-starrers. “I should have been selective with my roles,” he admits.
A ‘COMICAL’ TURNING POINT “After 14 flops came Hera Pheri in 1999,” says Priyadarshan, director, producer and scriptwriter responsible for letting viewers see the ‘comic’ side of Kumar. “Nobody explored him as an actor. People used him only for stunts and in action movies,” recalls Priyadarshan, who worked in a string of hit comedy movies with Kumar such as Garam Masala, Bhagam Bhag, Khatta Meetha, Bhool Bhulaiyaa and De Dana Dan. The reinvention was complete. “He is a supremely confident actor now who can pull off any role and carry a movie on his own,” maintains Priyadarshan, sharing an incident when he had to shoot a scene 16 times with Kumar for Hera Pheri. “He rediscovered his skills as an actor.”
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Kumar owes his current success to his selection of movies and roles, which are a far cry from his action-hero and comedy days. The common threads are topicality, realism and social messaging. Toilet: Ek Prem Katha revolves around the issue of poor sanitation in rural India. Pad Man is a story of the man who invented a low-cost sanitary pad manufacturing machine. Gold is a sports drama based on how the Indian men’s hockey team won the country’s first Olympic medal as a free nation in 1948. And Mission Mangal, the one under production, is about India’s 2014 Mangalyaan Mars Mission.
“Akshay is on a creative journey,” contends Prasoon Joshi, adman and lyricist. The most important milestones in this journey, he lets on, are exploring, experimenting and taking on new challenges. “He is doing all three,” Joshi asserts. Kumar now is adding a new dimension to his creative side. “He has explored action, comedy and socially significant subjects,” he says. His negative role in the latest movie with Rajinikanth goes on to attest the way Kumar has been experimenting with different genres.
Kumar calls it evolution. “I used to enjoy action a lot. Then I developed a taste for comedy,” he says, adding that now he has realised the need to explore different subjects. “Every movie has to be different. If I continuously do any one genre, I would get bored.”
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HERE COMES MAGICAL MANDRAKE After dabbling in action movies for over a decade and tickling the funny bone with his profound sense of comic timing for the next 15-odd years, Kumar entered the third phase of his career in 2016. The focus now shifted to doing selective movies driven by content.
There was no looking back for Kumar. Rustom, a period crime drama based on the real-life story of naval officer KM Nanavati, came next. It also hit the jackpot by becoming another ₹