Akshay Kumar has been one of Bollywood’s top stars for over two decades. During the early stages of his career, he worked frequently with filmmaker Suneel Darshan. They had a falling out, which Suneel attributed to Akshay’s growing stardom. These days, the filmmaker speaks often about his string of success with Akshay, but also doesn’t refrain from commening about rumoured extra-marital affairs to Akshay’s acting capabilities. In a recent interview, he explained his relationship with the Housefull actor and what he thinks about his film choices and career trajectory.
While talking to Vickey Lalwani, Suneel was asked about what kind of an actor Akshay was in the nascent stages of his career, and while the director appreciated some aspects of his personality, he also let the critique flow. He said, “Akshay was a handsome boy when he came into the industry. During the first phase of his career, which lasted for eight years, he got some recognition and saw some progress as well. Then came a crash, where 13-14 of his films flopped in a row, whether they were made by a big director or not. Akshay is like Mithun Chakraborty; he signs film after film without looking at the filmmaker. During his second phase, because of this restlessness of signing films and doing work, he lost credibility, I think.”
Suneel added that even though many of his recent films have not done well at the box office, Akshay has “performed well on an individual level; it’s just that he displays no discretion while choosing what projects to do.” Talking about casting Akshay in Jaanwar, Suneel said, “During Jaanwar, I didn’t really need Akshay Kumar, because I had a lot of actors waiting on the side who wanted me to sign them. There are two things that I think work for him and also why I signed him: one, that he is damn handsome, and two, that he is very disciplined. I felt that he had that raw potential, and he was always ready to submit himself completely to the director and his vision.”
The filmmaker admitted that Akshay sometimes faces problems memorising his lines, but said that this isn’t uncommon in the industry. Asked if rumours that Akshay reads his lines off a teleprompter are true, Suneel said. “It’s very good if an actor can memorise his lines, but for him, it was always difficult to remember complete pages of dialogues. It was manageable in the beginning because he was doing less work, but he did have a problem during the later years of us working together. We used to put placards for him to read from, and he is not the first person to do it.”
In an interview with Bollywood Bubble, director-choreographer Ahmed Khan also spoke about this. “Many actors do this. Everyone has their own method. What Akshay does is also a talent. He does so many things physically. While many actors can remember dialogues, but do not give much from their side physically, but Akshay tries to give a lot of things from his side to the film,” he said.
In the last five years, Akshay has starred in over a dozen major flops. His last few films were Housefull 5, Kesari Chapter 2, and Sky Force, all of which fell short of the mark considering their big budgets.
