“In my opinion, it is important that the budget of the film is a success, only then the film is a success. I firmly believe in it. I have made all my films in this way, the budget and the time are of the most very important to me. I don’t waste my time, I don’t waste the time of my co-actors, because everyone’s time must be respected.

So, did Akshay start making movies following a business model, or does he even watch the art of it? The actor replies, “It’s both. I don’t make films just for business; I make films with social messages, comedy. I make films that do well at the box office, that are win-wins for everyone – the directors, the actors, everyone.

At a time when other players in Akshay’s league are struggling to stay relevant, the Khiladi Kumar seems to have found the right formula for stringing together blow after blow. But he stresses that “there is no such formula” for the success of his films. He clarifies: “I can act like this great intellectual and tell you that this is how this film works, and that it is a formula for success, but no, there isn’t. It’s all about luck, and I was very lucky. Some films work, some work very well, some don’t work at all, I was the one who had 16 flops at once and then no one asked me what my formula was for failing. So basically there is no formula for success, it all depends on luck and hard work. One thing that leads to success is hard work, never giving up. In some people’s lives, the night lasts longer, but that doesn’t stop the sun from rising the next day. It’s the same with hard work and success. Sure, there are trends, there are times when social message movies work, sometimes masala movies work, but other than that there’s not much to analyze.

“I don’t apply too much emotion and thought behind signing films, I don’t intellectualize my films as much. When I sign a film, I see what is different in the film and how it offers something new. I also see what causes he brings up if he does, and if I’ve done something like this before. I also see why my friends and my co-stars signed this film, and what they think about it. The budget is the last thing I think about before signing a film,” he adds.

Akshay Shares how he manages to shoot several films in a year. He says, “In my opinion, you can’t give a film more than 45 to 55 days. If you control these aspects of the film, the budget will also be controlled. I can never work in movies where you have to commit like 100-200 days. I’m a small person, I make small films.

Akshay has made multi-star films throughout his career, a choice his contemporaries eschew. He says, “I don’t want to take names, but there are a lot of actors who won’t do a 2 or 3 hero project. I scratch my head, I don’t understand why they don’t want to make these films. I think it’s wonderful if there are stories with more actors. Doesn’t that happen all the time in Hollywood? I do them because they are beautiful scripts. I want to be part of successful films. If such films do well, it works well for everyone, what would I do with a single good character for myself?! If it’s a 3 hero story, the story is fantastic and my character is pretty much fine, it works. If I make a movie with a great main character but the movie is a bomb, ‘achaar daalunga mein apne character ka?’ I don’t understand their calculations.

As South India airs pan-Indian hits, has the competition come to Bollywood’s doorstep? Akshay, who was one of a handful of mainstream Hindi actors to work in a southern blockbuster (Rajinikanth 2.0), says there will be more collaborations, but no competition: “We all want to come to the big screen , make good films and make money from films. We all want to make big big movies. And why only Southern and Bollywood collaborations? We should go West, watch French movies, it should just keep developing.