In Part 1 of this conversation with Akshay Kumar ahead of the release of Sudha Kongara’s Sarfira, the actor gets candid about the fleeting nature of success, his thoughts on comedy as a genre, and more…
Edited excerpts:
Akshay, how do you manage to stay grounded despite having a lot of fame, followers, adulation, and money and not let that noise affect you?
What I’ve learnt from my experience, and that of others, is that success is the biggest cheater. It cheats you all the time. It’s there today, but later it will cheat you and go to someone else. Don’t be too sure about it. In my career, there have been a lot of times when I’ve given 16-18 hits continuously and 10-12 flops continuously. So I don’t take it seriously. This much I knew from the beginning of my career. Success is a crown that will keep on running to everybody. The best part is you’ve not made success yourself. Success, I believe, is 70 per cent luck and 30 per cent hard work. Many won’t agree with what I say, but I’ve seen the worst films becoming superhits and the best ones becoming flops. I’m sure you’ve criticized some films that later ran well. The opposite also happened, I’m sure. So that means there is something called luck, which exists and plays its own game.
Which was the first film in your career where you had to depend a lot on emotions — or revealed your dramatic side?
Elaan, directed by Guddu Dhanoa, starring Amrish Puri, Madhoo, Farida Jalal. From there, I started learning more. I’ve never come from a place where I can say, “I came from an acting school.” Whatever today I’ve learned is slowly, slowly from the experience of looking at people, listening to directors… a lot from South Indian directors, too, like Priyadarshan, Shankar sir, Prabhu Deva, and now Sudha.
Is there any film that you say is your comfort zone? Is comedy one such?
Because I’ve done many comedies and action films, it doesn’t mean these are my comfort zones. They are very hard. Unfortunately, especially in my industry, and even Hollywood, they don’t consider comedy a great genre. They look at it as something that’s not worthy of an award. It’s not right because making people laugh is one of the hardest things to do. I salute people who stand on stage and do standup comedies. They’re brilliant. I’ve never seen any award night giving a Best Actor or Best Film to a comedy. I wonder why.
Watch the full interview at:
