Akshay Kumar on Rustom success: 'Haven't received congratulatory message from Hrithik'

Akshay Kumar’s Rustom  is making the right noises at the box office and is being lapped up by the audience in large numbers. The movie, which is loosely based on the infamous case of KM Nanavati vs the state of Maharashtra, probably struck the right chords with the audiences. However, Akshay has said that he wasn’t very confident about the film. “Initially, I was nervous. But I liked the screenplay and script and therefore took it up. But I’m glad that people are open to watching real cinema and real stories,” said Akshay, who’s set to collaborate with director Neeraj Pandey with yet another outing, Crack. The duo previously collaborated on Special 26 and Baby, where Neeraj was the director, while Rustom had the filmmaker in the capacity of a producer. Announcing the project on Monday, Independence Day, Akshay took to his official Facebook handle with the first look poster of the film:

Akshay said, “What works with Neeraj is his knack for new ideas and him coming up with real life incidents for a film. Then, his screenplay and script is always novel. His take on a script is always different.” Meanwhile, there has been lot of excitement over the two superstars — Akshay and Hrithik Roshan clashing at the box office. Akshay’s film has managed to rake in the moolah, but the Rustom star played it down and took a diplomatic stand about the situation probably because Hrithik, in a sporting gesture, had decided to support Akshay’s Rustom about a week ago. He said, “It’s not a clash, that’s the wrong word to use. We always pray that all the movies should run because if the movies run, it will be good for the actors and for the industry overall. We want to make movies like Hollywood does and it will happen only if our films and actors are successful.” But when two corporates compete and are at loggerheads with each other, do the equations between its actors change? Do they become ruthless rivals? “Not at all,  Hrithik and I are still good and happy neighbours, we are still friends, we still talk to each other, we eat together and we respect each other,” said Akshay Akshay surely seems to have won a lot of hearts in Bollywood even before his film’s release, and that was evident as the countdown for Rustom’s release began. Quite a few actors lined up to promote his film on social media. With this fervent support from the film fraternity, didn’t Akshay have an upper hand in comparison to the other release? He said, “It was nice for the fellow actors and colleagues to come in large number to support me. Even those I haven’t worked with supported the film by tweeting about it. It worked for us and we should carry on this trend for lot of other films. But it’s most important that the films should run.” [caption id=“attachment_2643066” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Akshay Kumar in Rustom. Image Credit @akshaykumar[/caption] He also clarified that he hasn’t yet seen Mohenjo Daro nor has he heard from Hrithik, “No, I haven’t received any congratulatory message from Hrithik so far.” Kumar is synonymous with patriotic films as he has done a string of movies around patriotism. He usually plays the country loyalist, in films like Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo, Special 26, Gabbar Returns, Baby, Airlift, Holiday-A Soldier Is Never Off Duty and the recently released Rustom in which he plays a naval officer. “Maybe because my dad was in the Army, so there are lot of memories in my head. And maybe that’s the reason I love wearing uniforms,” said Akshay. He’s particularly kicked about the compliment he recently received from an Air Force officer. “He called me to say that I was looking beautiful in a naval officer’s uniform in Rustom. I found that quite funny,”he laughs. Akshay has hit a hat trick this year with Rustom after giving two back-to-back Box office hits like Airlift and Housefull 3 in the first half of 2016. Though, he takes his success with a pinch of salt and attributes it to luck. “I don’t take success seriously because today I’m being praised for three successful films but just the other day someone mentioned that I had 14 flops in a row. We actors should take it easy and I suggest this to all my fellow actors. I feel, in my case, it’s 60 to 70 per cent luck and the rest is hard work,” he adds. Akshay is currently working on courtroom comedy drama, Subhash Kapoor’s Jolly LLB 2, in Lucknow. The film will see him play a lawyer with a perfect comic timing. Post that, he will be seen in Namastey England (its in the scripting stage) and Rajinikanth’s sci fi 2.o.