Akshaye Khanna on absence and comebacks

For years, Akshaye Khanna’s sporadic presence on the big screen sparked speculation. Was he selective to a fault or simply uninterested in the race most actors seem desperate to win? During the promotions of Mom, Akshaye finally addressed the question head-on. In his conversation with NDTV he said , “ I have been working for 19 years. I don’t know anything else apart from work.” Yet, he acknowledged that the previous few years had been different. “For the last 2–3 years, I couldn’t work due to some personal reasons,” he shared, without dramatizing or offering details. True to his nature, Akshaye chose restraint over revelation. “When that phase passed , I started again and I thought when I start again I will begin with small but good roles. There would not be any compromise in roles and that is how I did a small role in Dishoom,” he explained. Importantly, Akshaye dismissed the romanticized notion that actors enjoy long breaks. “It’s not like that,” he said plainly. “Everyone wants to work. Especially actors, they feel depressed at home, they feel sad.” Akshaye began his career way back in 1997 with Vinod Khanna backed film Himalay Putra and then went on to do films like Border, Aa Ab Laut Chalein, Taal, Dil Chahta Hai, Humraaz, Hungama, Hulchul, Race, Tees Maar Khan, Ittefaq, Drishyam 2, Chhaava and most recently Dhurandhar. Dhurandhar has set the box office on fire with a total collection of over Rs 700 crore in India making it the biggest Hindi film of all time. It has also become the highest grossing Hindi film in North America beating Shah Rukh Khan's Pathaan.Akshaye would be reportedly next seen in Sunny Deol’s Border 2, where he would be making a guest appearance with Suniel Shetty and Sudesh Berry , reliving the characters they played in the first installment of Border.