WILL NEVER MAKE A FILM ON MYSELF, SAYS AKSHAY

Akshay Kumar says he would never make a film on himself and would rather have a biopic on inspiring Indians

Bollywood is witnessing a rising trend of adapting real-life stories for biopics but Akshay Kumar says he would never make a movie on himself. Recently, Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanju, a biopic on Sanjay Dutt, did great business at the box office, but was criticised for whitewashing the actor’s image. A shallow thing

“I would never ever make a biopic on myself and I will never write a book on myself,” Akshay said. “There are so many amazing stories in history, like Tapan Das (his character in Gold), Arunachalam Muruganantham on whose life Padman was based, who have steered India in a positive direction. I would be a fool to make a biopic on myself. I would never even think of it, it will be a shallow thing to do for myself. I want to make biopic on real heroes and not reel heroes,” he added.

Hindi cinema has been churning out biopics one after the other, with a string of films such as Super 30, Manto, Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi,a

film on Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and Prime Minister Narendra Modi already lined-up for theatrical release.

Asked if the industry is going overboard with biopics, Akshay said, “It is a known (fact) in our industry that if something works, almost everyone does the same thing and this is not just about biopic or sports biopic or something else. If a few films fail, everyone will run after something else.”

No comparisons please

Akshay Kumar, whose next Gold is based on true events about India winning its first Olympic gold medal in hockey as a free nation, believes it is “frivolous” to compare the film with Chak De! India. Led by Shah Rukh Khan, the 2007 sports film was a fictional story about the Indian women’s national field-hockey team, which was inspired by the squad’s win at the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

“Everything will be a competition. For me, it is all about doing a good film. Chak De... was a different story, Gold is different. It is frivolous to even think like that or competing with that film. Don’t compare it, it is all different,” Akshay said.

Bowled over

Gold traces the journey of Tapan Das (played by Akshay) an assistant manager, who dreams to get a gold medal for the then newly-independent India. The actor said he was initially unaware about the story of Gold, but was bowled over when Kagti narrated the film.

“Reema is a tough master, she handled the sports thing very well. I salute her. It is commendable. It is a tough film to handle as you are taking the audience to the time period of 1936, then 1947 and 1948, she had to do so much homework. To make a film in that era is a very difficult job,” he added.

Asked if the iconic event got buried in the history in the aftermath of the Partition, Akshay said “gold medal was not a priority at that time” for the country. Besides Gold, the actor also has 2.0, Housefull 4 and Kesari in his kitty. Gold is set to face off with Satyameva Jayate on August 15.