Actor Akshay Kumar recently spoke about the people who inspired him the most in his acting journey. While many might expect him to name his father-in-law the late superstar Rajesh Khanna, Akshay revealed that his biggest inspiration has always been Amitabh Bachchan instead.

In a recent interaction with India Today, Akshay was asked to name actors who influenced him. The actor mentioned Amitabh Bachchan along with veteran performers Sanjeev Kumar and Mehmood. However, when asked why he did not include Rajesh Khanna, Akshay gave a thoughtful answer.

He said that he actually learnt a lot from his father-in-law but in a different way. According to Akshay, Rajesh Khanna would openly talk about the mistakes he made during his career and the lessons he learned from them.

“I learnt from him what not to do. He used to actually sit me down and tell me about the mistakes he had made” Akshay said. He also added that Rajesh Khanna was once the biggest superstar the country had ever seen.

Akshay also shared a childhood memory about how he admired Rajesh Khanna long before he became a part of his family. The actor recalled that when he was around seven or eight years old, he would pass Carter Road with his parents and stop outside Rajesh Khanna’s famous bungalow, Aashirwad, just to see him once.

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Akshay said his father would lift him onto his shoulders so that he could catch a glimpse of the star standing on the balcony. Looking back at that moment today, Akshay said it feels like destiny that he eventually married Rajesh Khanna’s daughter, author and former actor Twinkle Khanna.

“This is kismat. I never imagined that his daughter would be my wife,” he said.
Akshay has spoken earlier as well about how Rajesh Khanna’s life taught him important lessons about success and failure. In an earlier interview with Galatta Plus, the actor said that seeing the rise and fall of the legendary star helped him stay grounded in his own career.

Rajesh Khanna enjoyed an unmatched run at the box office during the late 1960s and early 1970s, delivering an incredible 17 consecutive solo hits. But the industry began to change when Amitabh Bachchan’s ‘angry young man’ image became hugely popular with films like Zanjeer and Sholay.

As audience preferences shifted, Rajesh Khanna’s dominance at the box office slowly declined. The actor faced a series of unsuccessful films and found it difficult to reinvent himself in the changing film industry.

Even so, Rajesh Khanna remains one of the most iconic stars of Hindi cinema. He later made occasional appearances in films and was last seen in the 2014 movie Riyasat.

For Akshay Kumar, the stories and experiences shared by his father-in-law became an important reminder that success and failure are both temporary in the film industry. His focus, he says, is simply to keep working and stay grounded.