Casual conversation with JP Dutta turned Akshaye Khanna into an actor

Akshaye Khanna is the talk of the town thanks to his performance in Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar as Rehman Dakait and also for reportedly walking away from Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam 3. But not many are aware that his acting career began with just a conversation with veteran director JP Dutta. In a clip that is now going viral, Akshaye in his conversation on Aaj Tak stated that his father Vinod Khanna wanted him to study more but by the age of 15-16 he had already made up his mind to become an actor and how this profession would give him happiness and satisfaction. He went on to narrate that one day JP Dutta had come over to his father’s place for dinner and while sitting in the room- he asked him if he’d like to act in his film Border. Akshaye who already wanted to be an actor but was scared to tell his father about it- thought this is the right opportunity and agreed to do it. He was about 18 years old then and the film was going to start in a year. So when his father got to know about it- he told Akshaye that he would make a film for him before he goes on to do Border as to start his acting career with a multi-starrer which has names like Sunny Deol, Suniel Shetty and Jackie Shroff would not be an apt start to his acting dream, so he went on to launch him in Himalay Putra. Incidentally Akshaye is all set to reprise his Border role in Border 2. Reports suggest that few months ago Akshaye shot for the sequel of his 1997 blockbuster film with Suniel Shetty and Sudesh Berry and all of them would be de-aged to look like how they looked back in 1997.