Akshay Kumar on casting five female leads in Mission Mangal: 'They are the real heroes'

Akshay Kumar says it was easy for him to get five A-list female actors for his next Mission Mangal , a feat he believes would be difficult to pull off with his male co-stars. [caption id=“attachment_3382060” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Akshay Kumar. Image from Facebook[/caption] Touted as India’s first space film, Mission Mangal will feature female stars –Vidya Balan, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha, Nithya Menen, Kirti Kulhari – along with Akshay and Sharman Joshi. “The script demands them to be ahead. They are the real heroes. I am supposed to be behind them even though I am producing it. I am very happy to see these five girls, who are very big in their own way, are not bothered that there are five of them coming together,” Akshay said in a group interview. “The attitude of ‘why should I do it’ isn’t there. I don’t think five heroes will come together. I don’t think so. But when I approached them they were very happy with their roles and were ready to do the film,” he added. When asked why do heroes have that apprehension, Akshay said he is not aware, as from his end, he has done several multi-starrers. “I hope seven actors come together. Earlier they used to. Rajkumar Kohli used to make those films and even I’ve done Jaani Dushman,” he added. Akshay will be next seen in _2.0_ , which features megastar Rajinikanth. The film is directed by S Shankar and is scheduled to release on November 29. Apart from this, Akshay has war-drama _Kesari_ up for release next year, along with the comedy Housefull 4 . Asked about the film based on Prithviraj Chauhan, which is reportedly backed by Yash Raj Films and directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the actor said, “We are still finalising. Maybe next year end.