Akshay Kumar turns 59 today. After following his career since the late 1990s, I find myself thinking less about the number of films he has done and more about how many times his career has taken a turn when almost everyone thought they knew exactly where he was headed. That, more than anything else, makes Akshay Kumar an interesting star to look back at.
Most people know the usual story. Before Bollywood, he worked in Bangkok, taught martial arts and tried different things to make a living. Then came modelling, films, the action image and the Khiladi tag.
But even the name Akshay Kumar has an interesting story behind it.
He was born Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia. His first film appearance was a tiny one in Mahesh Bhatt’s Aaj. He has recalled that Kumar Gaurav’s character in the film was called Akshay. Some time later, Rajiv went to a Bandra court and legally changed his name to Akshay Kumar. He even had visiting cards printed with the new name when he was still looking for work.
There was no guarantee at that point that the name would mean anything to anyone.
Then came another strange turn.
Akshay once recalled missing a flight to Bangalore for a modelling assignment because he had got the timing wrong. Instead of simply going home, he went to Natraj Studios. There he met Narendra Dada, a make-up artist who was connected to filmmaker Pramod Chakraborty. That meeting eventually helped him get a break in films.
One can call it luck. Akshay has often called it luck himself.
But luck alone does not explain what happened later.
By the late 1990s, the industry had a fairly fixed idea of Akshay Kumar. He was the action hero. He did stunts. He made action films. He was the Khiladi.
The problem was that the formula had started working against him.
There was a phase when the hits had dried up and the talk around him had changed. Looking back at interviews from that period, what is interesting is that Akshay himself knew he had to do something different.
In a 2000 interview, he spoke openly about being tired of doing only action films. He still enjoyed the stunts, but he wanted better roles. Sangharsh, Jaanwar and Hera Pheri were part of that change.
There is another little-known part of this period that says a lot about the actor he wanted to become.
Akshay was attached to Deepa Mehta’s Water.
Today that sounds surprising. Akshay Kumar in a Deepa Mehta film is not the first pairing that comes to mind. But in early 2000, it was very much a real possibility. Akshay had spoken positively about the film and said he liked the story. He was supposed to play Narayan, the role that was eventually played by John Abraham.
The film was stopped and later restarted with a different cast.
A few years later, Akshay was again linked to a Deepa Mehta project, Kamagata Maru, based on the 1914 voyage of Indian immigrants to Canada. Mehta said Akshay was willing to grow a real beard for the role and was also attached as a producer.
That film also did not happen in that form.
These are small details in a very long career, but they are worth remembering because they show that Akshay was trying to move beyond the image that had made him successful.
Then came Jaanwar.
Today, we talk about the film as one of the movies that brought Akshay back. At the time, things were not quite so straightforward.
Suneel Darshan has said that Jaanwar was first planned with Sunny Deol. Ajay Devgn was then almost finalised. According to Darshan, Akshay called him on a Sunday and asked him for a chance. Darshan decided to go with him.
What happened next has stayed with me because it gives you a sense of where Akshay stood at the time.
Darshan has recalled that Akshay was so low in the industry’s estimation that even getting a prominent poster was a problem. Darshan then put up a large Juhu hoarding featuring Akshay for Jaanwar.
It is easy to forget today just how important that gamble was.
Jaanwar worked.
And Akshay was back in the game.
But he was not simply back as the same actor.
Hera Pheri changed another part of his image. The action star discovered that comedy could work just as well for him. Soon, Akshay was no longer dependent on one genre.
There were still ups and downs, of course. There always were.
What is interesting is that even some of the films we now regard as obvious choices were not always that straightforward.
Take Special 26. Neeraj Pandey has recalled that when he first approached Akshay, he was told through the actor’s office that the script was not particularly interesting. When Pandey finally met Akshay, he discovered that the actor had never actually received the script. Pandey told him the story himself, and Akshay agreed.
One of the more unusual things about Akshay’s career is that several big turns seem to have happened through such small moments.
A missed flight.
A meeting at a studio.
A phone call on a Sunday.
A script that never reached the actor.
There was also a time when Akshay himself spoke very frankly about what he wanted from his career. In a 2002 interview, he said he wanted to become an actor rather than simply continue being a star. He also spoke about watching his own films in theatres and observing audience reactions.
That ambition probably explains more about his career than the Khiladi label does.
He kept trying different things.
Some worked beautifully. Some did not.
He made serious films, comedies, action films and socially driven subjects. Sometimes the audience came with him. Sometimes it did not. But he rarely stayed in exactly the same place for too long.
And now, at 59, he is doing something else again.
In Haiwaan, Akshay is playing the villain while Saif Ali Khan plays the hero. Priyadarshan has said that Akshay himself wanted the role because he had never played a psycho before.
There is a nice symmetry to that.
The actor who was once struggling to get people to look beyond the action hero image is now willing to play the character the audience may actually hate.
That, to me, is the more interesting Akshay Kumar story.
Not the number of releases.
Not the early-morning routine.
Not the Khiladi nickname.
Not even the fact that he has survived almost four decades in an industry that is very quick to move on.
It is the fact that he has repeatedly had to prove himself again.
At different points, he has been seen as an action star, a comedy actor, a dependable leading man, an inconsistent star, a bankable star, a social-issue actor and, more recently, an actor trying to find his way through another difficult phase.
Each label has eventually become incomplete.
That may be why Akshay Kumar remains difficult to neatly define even at 59.
The industry has spent years trying to decide what kind of actor he is.
Perhaps Akshay’s real achievement is that he has never quite allowed the answer to stay the same for very long.
