Akshay Kumar: The ultimate desi boy

Akshay Kumar talks about his upcoming film Desi Boyz and his aspirations.

NEW DELHI:

He is a hardcore commercial actor and, as a producer, he has produced potboilers, but Akshay Kumar says given a chance he would love to experiment. He also reveals that he will always be a ‘desi’ boy, whether this means preferring Hindi to English or eating parathas at home.

“I want to produce commercial films. But if I get a good script, I would love to make a National Award-winning film,” Kumar, 44, who has spent two decades in Bollywood, states in an interview.

The actor is all set to put a lid on 2011 with Desi Boyz. Releasing November 25, the film will see him teaming up with John Abraham as a co-star. Directed by Rohit Dhawan, the son of director David Dhawan, Desi Boyz also has Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh in the female leads.

Kumar, a Punjabi who has spent many years in Delhi, says he has always been a desi at heart and his recent decision of communicating in Hindi shouldn’t be taken as a marketing gimmick.

“I have always tried to speak in Hindi. It is because in real life I am a real desi boy. All my life I have believed that the day should start with touching my parents feet, that home cooked food is always better than outside food. I have always preferred ghar ka paratha to anything from outside,” he says.

The crackling chemistry between Akshay Kumar and John Abraham was the highlight of Garam Masala and Kumar says his friend and co-star has improved a lot since then. “We are coming back together on the big screen after six long years. We were not offered any movies together during that period. While shooting for this film, we had much more fun than we had in Garam Masala. So, we were wondering why no one ever thought of casting us together all these years,” says Kumar.

From being an action hero to doing comedies, Akshay tried different things and in his upcoming film Desi Boyz he will be seen doing pole dancing. The action-comedy deals with how the life of two friends turns upside down when recession hits Britain and they are left with no choice but to pole dance for a living.

What Kumar liked about his character, Jerry Patel, is that it was a different role. “I had a lot of fun while doing this film. First of all I haven’t played this kind of character ever. When the role was narrated to me, I knew this was something I wanted to do. And, secondly, director Rohit Dhawan told me the film is based on the real-life incident of two people who had to take extreme paths to survive during recession,” he says.

The actor made his mark with hits like Khiladi, Ajnabee, Hera Pheri and Namastey London and is all set to entertain his fans with interesting projects like Joker, Rowdy Rathore and Housefull 2 next year. He turned producer in 2010 with Tees Mar Khan and later produced Patiala House and Thank You as well. Even though these films flopped at the box-office, Kumar remains undeterred.

“I will always do a film I believe in and my fans can relate to it as well. So even if Patiala House didn’t do well commercially, it was critically acclaimed. I was close to the film because it dealt with the emotional bond between a father and a son,” he states.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2011.