Fortune India Exclusive: Akshay Kumar, the Everyman superstar

IT’S 5 PM ON A HOT MAY EVENING. Inside a recording studio in Mumbai’s Andheri area, Akshay Kumar, 58, is giving finishing touches to his latest movie, Welcome To The Jungle, the third instalment of the Welcome comedy franchise, due for release on June 26. His next release is Haiwaan, where he plays a cold-blooded antagonist in a remake of Malayalam film Oppam, which starred Mohanlal. The film is directed by Priyadarshan, with whom he has just had a good run with horror-comedy Bhooth Bangla, after a relatively indifferent run at the box office earlier. Bhooth Bangla, co-produced by Kumar’s Cape of Good Films and Balaji Telefilms, made on a budget of about ₹120 crore, has garnered India net collections of over ₹182 crore (worldwide gross collections of over ₹270 crore), according to box-office tracker Sacnilk, and is now streaming on Netflix. Typically, every year, despite box office vagaries, Kumar comes up with three to four releases. This has been his mantra: there’s always an Akshay Kumar film coming up. Emerging from the recording, clad in baggy brown co-ords and a black Beanie and sporting a full beard, Kumar hardly looks tired despite the punishing schedule. In fact, he looks relaxed, and greets us with a warm smile and a firm handshake. The Fortune India-Interbrand study pegs Kumar’s brand value at ₹2,064 crore, putting him at No. 6 on the list. The study finds “everyman reliability” as his brand’s key strategic moat, providing him a high trust score that is immune to box office dips. Says Vikram Malhotra, founder and CEO of Abundantia Entertainment, which has produced some of Kumar’s movies like Airlift (2016): “Akshay Kumar’s sustained value as a top celebrity and a powerful brand comes from the strong consistency of his connection with audiences for more than three decades. He has never allowed superstardom to become entitlement and has, quite to the contrary, earned it film after film, year after year. Akshay’s ability to reinvent himself — from an action star to cult comic roles, from drama to socially rooted entertainers — has ensured that he not only retains value amongst existing fans but also keeps building new fan franchises. That is an extraordinary balance and one that is also visible in the array of successful consumer brands that he has endorsed.” Elaborates Malhotra: “Akshay’s core brand values have remained clear, consistent and unshakeable: discipline, hard work, focus on health and fitness and swimming in his own lane. He is a true home-grown hero — someone who rose from the masses, understands their aspirations and has continued to represent their lives, humour and resilience on screen. Having worked closely with him for the last 16 years, what stands out for me is that the qualities people admire in Akshay the star are deeply rooted in Akshay the person. This integrity is what makes Akshay not just one of India’s most valuable celebrities, but one of our most relatable and lasting icons.” Says Afsar Zaidi, founder and CEO of Exceed Entertainment, which is Kumar’s strategic partner to oversee and manage his brand: “He appeals to masses in a big way. Hit, flop, victory and defeat don’t matter anymore when it comes to Akshay. He is the most hardworking person in the industry. He is like Dwayne Johnson, who is also extremely hardworking. He loves his work so much that he’s consistently at work. When you’re at work, it really doesn’t matter; money will follow, success, failure will be part of it, but you need to be at it. His management of time is impeccable. I would like to bring all these attributes to the fore in the way I manage him.” Kumar speaks to Fortune India in detail about what makes Brand Akshay tick. You have been in the movies for over three decades. What do you attribute your continuing popularity and longevity of Brand Akshay to? I attribute everything I have to discipline, hard work, perseverance and luck. I feel I am very blessed that God has made me the way I am. I wake up every morning with the same enthusiasm I had when I started. I cannot wait for every day to leave home and go to work and that is regardless of success and failure. My journey is no secret to anyone, I’ve had multiple ups and downs. But through every phase there has been that string of effort to do the right thing every day that has held my life all through. I’d also like to mention that while there is no substitute to hard work and effort and action, you need that luck too for all of this to fire in your favour. I consider myself very lucky too. You have done a multitude of different roles in the course of your career. From comedy to action to serious and intense parts, how do you choose your roles? What are the key factors that get you to say yes to a film? First and foremost, my heart has to say yes. And it can say yes in just hearing two lines of the idea sometimes. Many of my films, including Airlift, Good Newzz and OMG 2 have happened like that. I remember during Good Newzz, Karan Johar had brought me something else, and I didn’t quite see myself doing it, then I asked him “tu aur kya bana raha hai? (what else are you making?)” And he said, ‘Akshay there is a small film where a sperm mix up happens and then this happens and then that happens’ and I said there and then, ‘I’m doing this film!’ Same was the case with Airlift. Nikhil Advani and Vikram Malhotra had brought me something else and I’d asked them, what else are you doing? All Nikhil said was that there is this story where India did the largest rescue mission for its citizens in Kuwait during the Iran-Iraq war! And I said I’m doing this! OMG 2 I’d said yes only by hearing that it’s a film on sex education. Then of course the other things come into play, like the budget, the crew and casting of other characters, the viability of the whole project, etc. But the instinct of what to do is always driven by the heart. You have always been known to be a producer’s actor, and work for the best results for the producer. As a producer yourself, how do you ensure the actors on your set align with this philosophy? I hate negativity! And the first thing I ensure, or at least try to ensure, is that everyone who is joining the project is aligned with the same philosophy. I’ve seen over the years and experienced that every film of mine in which there was negativity amongst people, toxicity on the set, gossip and hearsay going around — all those films didn’t do well. And the same way where the whole process of filming to the release was so smooth that we didn’t even feel the film got over — all and I mean all those films have worked! I feel there is an energy and a vibe that the camera sees and nothing is hidden from that lens. Bhooth Bangla and Welcome to the Jungle apart, tell us a bit more about your slate for this year. By God’s grace, Bhooth Bangla got incredible love from the audience, and I remain forever grateful. I hope the same from Welcome to the Jungle which we had a blast making. I have Haiwaan coming after Welcome to the Jungle and also the yet untitled Anees Bazmee directorial towards the end of the year. Busy year like always for me... and I can’t be happier staying busy. You have always been known to stick firmly to schedules, and therefore can do around four movies every year. Will you continue this process of doing three to four films every year? Yes I will keep doing it for as long as I can. I can’t sit at home doing nothing. I love films and I love my work. As I said, I love waking up every day and going to work. Also, God has made me in such a way that I don’t waste time in thinking too much. Whether I should do this or not? How should I do this? Will this work for me or not? These questions are not for me. I trust my feelings and once I am convinced, I do it. And I feel somewhere that is also the reason why and how I am able to jump from one genre to the other. As much as I love doing the films with a social impact, I love doing the Housefull series and the Rowdy Rathores and the Tees Maar Khans, too. Sometimes it works in your favour, sometimes it doesn’t, but it always makes you grow. You know if you start thinking too much about what impact it will have on my career and my brands and my image you will always be in that cage, and even if it is a golden cage it is still a cage. Brand analysts say you have an “everyman reliability” as a celebrity brand, providing an immense trust factor. This makes you a “blue-chip anchor” for mass market retail brands which benefit from this trust factor. Your brand is also seen as immune to box-office ups and downs. What do you feel Brand Akshay represents? I see it the same way the brands see it. Firstly, our vision is aligned. That is why they have chosen me as their ambassador and I have chosen the brand. I think what you say, stability over hype — that is what marks the basis of long-standing associations. Films do well and sometimes they don’t and that is the film business side of it. But in my experience, the advertising world, the brands world, works differently. Apart from the stardom and the likeability factor, brands relate with you for the attributes you carry as a person, and that resonates with the story or image of their product, whatever they want to sell and project. How do you choose which brands to endorse? Do you go through the brand values of the products in detail? What is the process? Not just brands, there is no point endorsing anything in life if you don’t align with the basic philosophy of it. Most of the brands that I endorse have been with me for years and years. They see a reason in retaining me and renewing their contract with me because they see value in how I resonate with the brand’s values. I have consistently been rated in market surveys as the most relatable brand ambassador because when people see me in an ad, they feel they can relate to me in a natural way. I mostly improvise the script of my ads myself, so that my natural language, my natural humour can come in. The process of selecting brands and projects is of course based on my team and I studying their values, their ethos. And it is not as if I am shy of accepting anything that doesn’t turn out to be what my audience expects from me. It is public knowledge that a few years ago I withdrew from an endorsement after my fans’ feedback. The concerned brand was also greatly understanding towards my decision and I have maintained a good association with them even after that withdrawal. I feel that brand endorsement has to be an extension of an actor’s own personality... there may be ups and downs but the basic values alignment always remains constant. Your fitness and healthy lifestyle have been admired by your fans and brands alike. Do you make a conscious choice to advocate healthy brands? For me, there is no point being alive if one is not able to give time and attention to one’s health. And I have been straightforward about it in all my interviews from the beginning of my career. Health is supreme, everything else comes later. And when I advocate a healthy lifestyle so strongly, there is no way that I don’t lead by example. I live a disciplined life. I wake up before sunrise, I make sure I get enough sunlight, I work out rigorously, I eat healthy, and I sleep early. It is easy as a film star to lead a life partying till morning, but I have made a conscious choice that that’s not me. I go by the 8x8x8 principle — eight hours of sleep, eight hours of working, and eight hours of family time — every day. That’s what’s keeping me sane and healthy at this age, and I am grateful that my parents pushed me into this lifestyle early on in life. Obviously therefore, my brand choices are those that are natural and healthy. I’ve lost count of how many endorsements I have rejected in life because they are related to a synthetic, chemical-led lifestyle. Not for me. You know health is not just sweating it out and eating right. It is how you feel internally. Are you happy and peaceful or not. Do you have mental clarity or not. How is the environment around you. How the relationships in your life are. Your life and health is like a moving car, every part has to function properly for it to move smoothly. Over the past few years, I feel I have evolved tremendously in a spiritual, mindful way. I don’t know what my answer to this question would have been a decade or so ago, but today I feel more peaceful than ever. And this peace is very intrinsic — it is not dependent on the success or failure of my professional projects. This peace is what I feel when I work out to Shiva chants, this peace is what I feel when I play ludo with my daughter, when I go museum hopping with my wife and son, even though I may not understand the nuances of history as much as them! I enjoy this simple happiness that’s coming my way as a blessing, maybe from my parents in heaven. It’s internal, and eternal. Having been in films for so long, what are the key changes you are witnessing in the movie business? Do you see it as more professional now from earlier? The movie business is as dynamic as any other, if not more. As a producer for the past many years and having made some of the most successful films under my banner Cape of Good Films, I understand how the industry and its financial dynamics have evolved. I find things turning more structured, more professional. People pay attention to their contracts now — it’s good to see transparency and ethics coming in the business of making films. At the same time, our film industry is uniquely also holding on to personal relationships and associations in a beautiful way. It’s a wonderful blend. What advice would you give to newer actors who are getting endorsement deals? What do they need to keep in mind while signing up for product endorsements? First and foremost, see if you want to endorse the product or that category. Then look at the financials and commercials of a deal. Get professionals to do due diligence of the background of the brand as well as the company. Get a good legal team to thoroughly vet your contracts... and then give your 100% to the endorsement. And always remember, give a little bit more than what the brand expects out of you. Trust me, if you do that, they will never let go of you.

Fortune India Exclusive: Akshay Kumar, the Everyman superstar

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