While the Hollywood heart throb Leonardo DiCaprio is sweeping awards in the west, we think the Airlift star Akshay Kumar has a similar career trajectory as Leo.
Hard working to a fault. Versatile. Consistent. Talented. These are a few adjectives used to describe Hollywood’s heart throb Leonardo DiCaprio. The man has practically swept all awards including the recent BAFTA for his spectacular performance in The Reverant and is on the cloud nine currently. Though he has got his due now, our Leo was always considered a bit of an underrated actor. If you try to look for parallels back home, one name comes to mind. Akshay Kumar. Okay now, after reading this some of you will roll your eyes and exclaim that how on earth can we even compare these two, especially when there is so much difference in the range and body work of these actors. Yes, we agree but if you look closely there is a similar pattern in the growth trajectory of both these artistes. Read on and you will know what we are trying to say.
Both Leo and Akshay (AKA Rajiv Bhatia) have come from modest backgrounds and have had their fare share of struggle before tasting success. Like Leo, Akshay is considered as one of the underrated actors of the industry when it comes to receiving awards. Though these two have not always received awards despite churning out dazzling performances, they have always maintained their status as A-listers. Both of them are no strangers to full blown mainstream movies (Leo’s claim to fame is Titanic while Akshay has a string of masala films to his name like Singh Is Bliing, The Khiladi series to name a few) but they have also been a part of some intense, performance based flicks. For example. Leo showed us a totally different side of himself in Blue Diamond and Inception while Akshay has dazzled in some serious films like Baby and more recently in Airlift.
Akshay, like Leo, grew strength to strength acquiring more skills and expertly juggling various genres like action, drama and comedy. They even played the perfect lover boys. Leo’s rendition of a modern Romeo in Baz Luhrmann’s contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s tragedy and Akshay Kumar’s Dhadkan or Yeh Dillagi are perfect examples of the same. For a long time, Leonardo did not get his due for some awesome sauce films like The Departed, Inception and Revolutionary Road, among others. Similarly, Akshay does not have many awards in his kitty except for a Best Actor’s Award for Singh Is King in 2009 at the Screen Awards and a Filmfare for the Best Actor in Supporting Role for Dil Toh Pagal Hai. Though they seem to have been slightly ignored by the respective award committees, they enjoy a huge fan following.
It is great that Leo is dazzling the Hollywood awards scene, it is about time even Akshay gets his due. What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
