Film veteran Sudhir Pandey, who worked with Akshay Kumar in films like Tees Maar Khan, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha and Padman, talked about Akshay’s reliance on a teleprompter during shoots, saying the star sometimes can’t remember lines during a recent conversation with Siddharth Kannan. The senior actor said Akshay is so used to it that he perhaps “abuses” the system now.
What Sudhir Pandey Said About Akshay Reading Lines From Sheets
Siddharth Kannan brought up the open secret of Akshay reading lines on placards during shoots from his very early days. Sudhir Pandey, who worked with Akshay Kumar back in 1995 in a film titled Paandav, said Akshay earlier used to attempt to memorise lines though there was assistance.
Asked if Akshay still reads lines on a teleprompter, Sudhir Pandey said, “Tees Maar Khan mein toh utna nahi kiya tha. Par Toilet: Ek Prem Katha mein usne help liya tha long sequence mein. Ab ho sakta hai use ek suvidha milti hai, so woh use abhi abuse karne laga hai. Yeh aasan nahi hai once you get used to something (He has more used it in Toilet Ek Prem Katha long sequences. Perhaps he has now started to abuse the system. It’s not easy to adapt something new once you get used to it).”
When Siddharth asked Sudhir Pandey if he felt distracted by the big placards placed in front of the star, the senior actor said, “No, eye contact toh hota rehta hai. Yeh toh sirf help karne ke liye rehta hai.”
Sudhir Pandey made one thing very clear: his process is very different from Akshay’s. He said he can never take the help of a teleprompter during a shoot. He has to assimilate the lines to enact them beautifully on screen.
The journalist further asked whether a facility provided to a superstar would be allowed for a character artiste like Sudhir Pandey. Keeping the buzz alive, he replied he was “not sure” about it.
However, Sudhir Pandey praised Akshay’s growth over the years.
“Akshay was quite raw. If we compare him now, there’s been a leap in his performance. He used to take a lot of retakes. But with each retake, he used to improve his performance. Taking retakes is not a bad thing. Now times have changed. Now, you can take as many retakes as you want. But back in the day, there used to be stocks and producers were watchful about taking retakes.”
Sudhir Pandey is not the first actor to comment publicly on Akshay’s habit. Earlier, during a conversation with Vickey Lalwani, director Suneel Darshan also confirmed that the rumours were true.
“It’s very good if an actor can memorise his lines, but for him it was always difficult to remember complete pages of dialogues. It was manageable in the beginning because he was doing less work, but he did have a problem during the later years of us working together. We used to put placards for him to read from, and he is not the first person to do it,” said Darshan.
In recent times, Akshay Kumar was seen in Welcome to the Jungle, which was a moderate hit at the box office.
