‘It is difficult to do comedy’

I think I have a lot more to learn as an actor. The new faces these days are quite talented and are a force to reckon with, Akshay Kumar tells V. Ananth

Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal in Deewane Huye Paagal

Akshay Kumar is confident that his latest release Deewane Huye Paagal, which is basically a funny, romantic and racy love story, will turn out to be a hit at the box office like his last release Garam Masala. On the eve of the release of his film, he sounded very enthusiastic about the film. "It revolves around three characters, who hire me to find out the whereabouts of a girl. However, I fall in love with her and cut them out. In any case am I not notorious for cutting other actors’ roles in my films? These rumours, I find are funnier than even my comedy films."

According to Akshay, a lot of mind-boggling action scenes were shot in Dubai for Deewane Huye Paagal. But "unfortunately for the film, the length went haywire and we had no alternative other than cutting the fight scenes. Can you believe it, though I am known for cutting my co-stars’ roles in my films, in this case I had to actually reduce my own role for the sake of the betterment of the film."

Akshay asserts that he does not want to be tagged as a comedy actor forever. "Before Garam Masala I had acted in Waqt. It was not a comedy. It was an intense and emotional film. It is sheer coincidence that these two movies, Garam Masala and Deewane Huye Paagal, have been released in the same month, one after another."

Akshay feels that he is growing as an actor slowly and steadily. "Initially when I made my debut in films like Saugandh and Khiladi, people used to taunt me and criticise me and call me a piece of furniture. I have improved a lot as an actor and I am trying my level best to show my versatility by taking up different kinds of roles. Actually it is not just about essaying different roles as an actor. I feel that everything ought to be different—the script, my approach to a film as an actor, etc.

To prove his point, Akshay exults, "It is very easy to cheat the audience by putting on glycerin and shedding tears but difficult to do comedy because it is tough to make people laugh their guts out." He adds, "I am glad that my recent films like Waqt and Garam Masala have clicked at the box office. If I am lucky today, the credit ought to go to my wife Tina and son Aarav,"

Right now Akshay is glad that he has on his hands different kinds of roles in films. Like Suneel Darshan’s Dosti in which Bobby Deol is his co-star, Jaan E Man in which Salman Khan and Preiti Zinta are his co-stars, Family, directed by Rajkumar Santoshi with Amitabh Bachchan as his co-star, and last, but not the least, Hum Ko Deewane Kar Gaye besides Neeraj Vohra’s Phir Hera Pheri.

He confesses, "I get bored of doing similar kinds of roles in film after film, though I shouldn’t be telling this because Garam Masala is a big hit and Deewane Huye Paagal has chances of clicking at the box office. But the fact is that I am quite bored of doing comedy roles. Right now I am eagerly looking forward to some enterprising filmmaker casting me in his film as a psychopath. I have never ever played the role of a psychopath. I suppose it will be challenging to play a role like that as far as I am concerned."

Akshay says that he does not believe in the number tags. "Please do not make me feel like a horse by calling me No 1 just because Garam Masala has grossed well at the box office. I do not believe in cutthroat competition at all. Though there are quite a few actors in the industry, all of us have a lot of films on hand. To me success is a matter of survival. You see as many as 260 Hindi films are being made every year. I feel that it is far more important to see to it that you sustain yourself as an actor in this industry instead of trying to race past any other actor."

When asked to evaluate his growth as an actor over the past 16 years, Akshay says, "I think I have a lot more to learn as an actor. The new faces these days are quite talented. Like Shahid Kapoor is in fact the USP of Deewane Huye Pagal. I’d not hesitate to say that it is Shahid who is the surprise packet of the film. It is very difficult to compete with new energy. I had to do a competition dance with Shahid for Deewane Huye Pagal. It wasn’t an easy task you know!"

Though he is being associated with comedy films, Akshay insists that he does not have a sense of humour at all. "This is what my wife tells me. The day she tells me that I have a sense of humour, I will also feel that I do have a sense of humor," he laughs. — MF

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