Man of action......Article

Akshay Kumar is a natural born Khiladi. When t2 caught up with him in a suite at the Taj Mahal hotel in Colaba on Monday, he seemed completely at ease. When we had last spoken to him, he was a tad anxious, a little scared of failure. But all those crores that Kambakkht Ishq has raked in have certainly calmed the nerves. And despite the Tasveer flop show, there is still a keenness somewhere deep inside to try something new. Here's Akshay talking on fear, Fear Factor, Blue and the family.

You woo girls in films, you are make them cry on TV!

(Grins) I think these girls are very brave. They must have seen the first season. Last time, the girls weren't even ready for the stunts. They thought they were coming to a picnic and once there they realised what they had got themselves into. This time, they were all mentally prepared. But this time it was so much harder. I prepared most of the stunts myself. It was Level 2 and I had to take the show to the next level. It wasn't easy. Many of the girls got injured through the season, some used to faint, a lot of them broke down. But I had a ready answer to all their problems: "Aap yahaan jalebi khaane thodi aaye hain?" You have to face your fear.

Because you were preparing stunts for women, did you ever want to go easy?

You know, it's a perception that women are not as strong as men. It's a fact that when problems come up, women score over men. We can pick up more bricks, we have more strength but women are much more powerful in times of stress and distress. Their brains work faster. That's why I wanted only women to take part in Fear Factor (on Colors).

Have you reached this conclusion from your experiences with your family?

I am staying with five women! Now, don't get me in the wrong way (laughs). I am staying with my sister, my mother, my niece, my wife, my mother-in-law.... I have seen them. Take my wife. Twinkle did films only for money. She's said that. She did 16 films out of which 14 flopped. She was always meant to do interior designing. To jump from one career and start something new, it takes a lot. She made the switch in six months and went on to win the Best Interior Designer Award. She never won the Best Actress trophy.

What did you learn from the first season that you incorporated in Level 2?

I have performed most of the stunts myself this time. There were complaints last time that I didn't do the stunts. So here I am. In one particular stunt, I did it with every one of the participants. So I did that stunt 10 times in a row. You know, actually, I am not supposed to do any of the stunts. I am the host. It's like the Bigg Boss host… woh kya khud thodi andar chale jayenge (laughs)!

But then, you are Akshay Kumar…

Ya, it's ok. I did them because I enjoy doing them.

You are not afraid of anything, are you?

I am still scared of merry-go-rounds (smiles)! Even if I look at it going round and round and round, I feel very dizzy. I try and avoid it but kabhi kabhi main jaake baith jaata hoon and then my whole day goes for a toss. For me, height is fine. The giant wheel is fantastic but the merry-go-round is a problem.

What about your son Aarav? Is he already a daredevil at seven?

I will share with you an incident. See, I have converted this place I used to live in to a gym which is basically three floors, 11th, 12th and 13th. Now, there are no stairs to take you there. You have to reach there by climbing ropes and when you feel like coming down, you have to jump. There's a mattress below and you have to jump the 11-12 floors. So, around three years back, when Aarav was 4, he, a friend of mine and myself went to the gym. We climbed and reached there. When it was time for us to leave, I jumped. I asked Aarav to jump. He yelled "Daddyyyyy" and he jumped. And I caught him. Next I told my friend to jump and he just couldn't jump. He was afraid.

Actually, my son didn't know what fear is. We are not born with fear. We adopt fear. We take it in more and more. Even the fear of failure. Being not successful… the fear comes inside us. We just depress ourselves and we make things more and more complicated.

With Blue, you have supposedly taken Bollywood stunts to the next level?

Oh, don't even talk about it. It was really a bad scene, 150 feet down, 40 sharks and then I had to remove my oxygen cylinder and fight under water. It was definitely the worst stunt I have ever done. I wouldn't recommend anybody to remove cylinders that deep under water. I remember when the shot used to get over, I could hardly see anything. It was all blurred. All I could see were sharks all around me. I used to wait and then the oxygen guy would come and give me oxygen. You could not panic. Because if you panic, your lungs will burst when you try to go up.

Your family doesn't stop you doing all this? You can really take it easy now…

It's become a habit. It's like a madness in the mind. You can call it stupidity. I don't regret doing any stunt in my life. My son and my wife have become so used to it they don't even bother now. "Daddy kar lenge"… They don't even hug me and say good luck. Twinkle is like: "I know you will be fine." But the kind of risks I used to take before, I don't take them from the time my son was born. Earlier I used to stand on top of planes, jump from one plane to another, land on a hot balloon and if I miss, it would have a parachute ready to land through that.

In Khiladi 420?

Yes, I was crazy. I was actually trying to do the whole stunt because I had seen it in Tom and Jerry. They are the most violent thing going on on TV!

What do you watch on TV?

I watch sports, I watch news and I watch all those programmes that say "ab dekhiye kya hoga!" How they take something very simple and make a huge thing out of it. I love it. You know the way they say: "Dekhiye bhains paani mein gayee aur nikal nahin payee!"

You just celebrated your birthday on 9/9/9. Eerie?

I don't know… I know 666 is the devil. I hope 999 is the angel.

Any new resolutions or plans?

There's no use planning. Every time I watch the trial of some film of mine and think that it will run, it bombs big time. Jo sabse gandi lagti hai, woh chal jaati hai. You never know what runs and what doesn't. Tasveer was called 8 X 10, it didn't even run 2 X 4! I tried to do something different and see what happened. Ab dekho aagey kya hota hai… Blue is also different from anything I have done before.