It’s 6 am, and I am waiting to get a call from Akshay Kumar for an interview. I get a call from his manager and she asks me if I am ready. Before I could acknowledge her question, she patches the call. The next voice I hear is of Akshay Kumar. He asks, “Hi, Eshita, how are you? I hope you are an early riser.” I took a pause and replied saying that I didn’t sleep the entire night as I knew I might not be able to wake up this early. I could hear him laughing and encouraging me to change my sleeping cycle.
In four decades, Akshay Kumar has given us more than a hundred films — Every year, you can expect him to appear in one comedy, one action-drama, and a film that tugs at your conscience. To celebrate his incredible journey – with several ups and downs and his entrepreneurial journey with Force IX, we got in touch with Akshay Kumar. He spoke about his brand that’s available on Myntra, his journey, lows in life, box office numbers, and more. Excerpts from the interview:
While we all know that you are one of the finest actors in the industry, you are also a successful entrepreneur. Your brand Force IX is one of the top sellers on Myntra. Tell us something about that.
Thank you for the compliment firstly. Success and failure are not what I think of when I start anything. I do it for the love of it. Be it a film or a business idea, if it does not connect with me and I don’t want to really do it, I don’t touch it. So, selling well on Myntra is just an offshoot of making the right product that comes out of the same emotion I want to share with the people who wear it.
What made you work on Force IX and how closely are you involved when it comes to ideation or other decisions?
Extremely closely! From the ideation to the final result – the products range, the sampling, the making of each garment, the launch plan the business decisions the hiring of the right teams the structuring of the company and so much more – my team and I have been part of the entire process along with my partner Manish Mandhana. It’s fun.
You’ve kept the prices affordable. What was the idea behind that?
The core behind the success of any venture is more and more people connecting to it! We want our range to appeal to the old existing consumer in the market and also to tap into the new and growing aspirational India! And to be that pricing among other things becomes the most important key element. We want to be able to sell the best piece of merchandise we can at the best possible price point we can.
Akshay, we see you in many films in a year – Some work and some don’t but like I mentioned you are one of the finest actors we have. I want to understand how you deal with criticism. What keeps you going?
I have had many cycles of ups and downs in my life. The one common thing is that when the going’s good there are all praises and when it’s not it’s more criticism than you can imagine. Yes, I am human, and good feels good, and bad feels bad, but I am also proud of the ability I have to move on extremely quickly. What keeps me going is the same will I had on the first day I started work, I love working! And no one can take that away from me! You just have to keep going on, there is no other way. There is a higher power that sees everything and it compounds and gives you back the results of the honest hard work you put in, that’s how I deal with it.
At this stage in your career, what is it that makes you say yes to a script?
Whatever makes me feel I want to play this character, I go ahead and do it. And it’s as simple as that.
Tell me something, do box-office numbers bother you? Or do you just want to do your part and then leave it all to the audience?
Of course, they do. We are made or we are broken because of the box office numbers. That’s what you call hits and flops. The audiences tell us when we are right and where we are going wrong, and all that is reflected in the box office numbers because if a film does not work, that means people didn’t come to see it, which in turn means that they didn’t connect to it. And it means that’s the time for you to change. Which I think we as an entire industry are trying to do.
You’ve given us some incredible films and characters. I want to know how you look at your journey. Was there a time when people told you that you won’t be able to make it big or something like that? How do you stay humble and grounded?
You know the more I go forward and I understand what is the true way of living your life, I come up with only two words, humble and simple. I couldn’t even in my wildest of dreams have dreamt that God will give me so much. I have nothing but gratitude towards life and so many people, my fans, the audiences that have given me so much love over the years and still continue to do so… I can just bow my head down and say thank you.
What more can we expect when it comes to films and your brand Force IX?
As I said earlier. I won’t ever stop working. I love to keep going on. And that’s what you will get to see, more films, better films – at least from my side I will make for the audience what I feel best and even if I fail, I will keep improving (isn’t that what’s life all about?!). It stands the same for Force IX! You will only see the brand grow stronger in presence, more and more collections coming your way, and all of it with a smile and a whole lot of emotion. Coz it is “engineered with emotion” in the first place. God Willing.
