Akshay Kumar whose latest movie ‘Jolly LLB 3’ has just hit the screens recently, slowly moved towards doing comedy and drama, socially relevant movies in his career. However, when he started out, he was known for his action. He redefined action in Hindi cinema and was one of the few heroes who did his own stunts that time. As Akshay was promoting his latest film on the finale episode of Kapil Sharma’s show, director Mahesh Bhatt recalled an incident about him where he performed a risky stunt on his film ‘Angaaray’. The stunt was life-threatening, recalled Bhatt and he even compared Akshay to Tom Cruise. Bhatt said, “f Hollywood has Tom Cruise, who does his own deadly stunts, we have Akshay Kumar. I have seen him perform a daring stunt with my own eyes. A mere mention of the stunt will scare you. However, I actually didn’t watch it because I closed my eyes and ran towards the corner.”Bhatt explained how the sequence demanded Akshay to jump from one building to another, a move that could have ended disastrously. “The fight master came to me and said if the hero jumps from this building to the next one, the scene will come alive. I said yes, but there’s also the risk of losing a life. But Akshay said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it.’ I told him, ‘You are my responsibility. What if something goes wrong?’ He assured me that nothing will go wrong,” Bhatt recalled.The director admitted that he couldn’t bring himself to watch the stunt in real time. “I shut my eyes and moved away. Then, after that deafening silence, something electrifying happened and people started clapping. When I heard the applause, I turned to see he had landed safely. His expression was as if nothing had happened. I think that was the foundation on which he has come this far.”When the incident was brought up on the show, Akshay humbly responded, “I consider myself a stuntman first and then an actor. I would like to give credit to all the fight masters, who look after their actors and stuntmen. To answer your question, it’s a feeling, a high—it feels amazing, the desire to give it a shot.”A martial artist by training, Akshay has built his career on pushing boundaries with dangerous stunts, earning immense admiration along the way. During the finale episode of this third season of ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’, he also acknowledged the unsung heroes of action cinema, paying tribute to stuntmen for their vital contribution to the industry.
