Akshay Kumar

Akshay Kumar trained as a martial artist and worked as a chef and a model before the movies, which tells you most of what you need to know about his approach to the job: it is a job, and he shows up for it more than almost anyone. He does his own stunts, keeps famously early hours, and releases films at a clip that would exhaust a younger man.

“Khiladi Kumar” started as an action label in the nineties, then Hera Pheri revealed a genuine gift for comedy that carried him through a whole second career. More recently he has leaned into the issue-film, Toilet and Pad Man and the like, playing the everyman with a cause.

Consistency is the through-line. He is rarely the critics’ favourite and almost always somewhere near the top of the earnings list, and the cameras treat his gym-to-set routine as a daily fixture worth documenting.

Everything below is from our own cameras.

More on Akshay Kumar: en.wikipedia.org