How Akshay Kumar Has Emerged As a Star with a Conscience

Lately, the actor has been investing a lot of time meeting ministers and creating awareness about a topic, no one else ever cared about. So does that mean Akshay is leaving the "meaningless entertainer" tag behind with all the naive ventures like Housefull and It's Entertainment? Well looking at his recent and upcoming projects, this might just be true.

However in 2016, one saw a major shift in the choices of films Kumar started doing. It started with Raja Krishna Menon’s well-made film based on Kuwait evacuation, Airlift, where Akshay shed his image of just an entertainer, donning the image of a businessman turned patriot who puts others ahead of himself and his family and ensured safe return of more than a lakh Indians from a turbulent Kuwait when it was invaded by Iraq.

The streak, however, doesn't end here. Lately, all the projects Kumar has been taking up, either involves a social message, or a story less heard. While his upcoming film, Toilet... deals with the rural India's ignorance towards sanitation, his next, Padman, talks about the taboo topic of menstruation. The film has the acting prowess of Radhika Apte and star-status of Akshay. Together, if not a change, the film holds the capability to start a discussion about periods even in common household, because that is where Akshay's fanbase lies.

Overall, this new found actor-driven avatar of Akshay is a respite from a decade of senseless (sometimes entertaining) image. The actor knows he has the power to bring a change or at least bring a spotlight on issues like no one else and he's acting on it. The films can't be artsy, nor is he the best of actors seen in Bollywood, but certainly a powerful star with a will to change the course of his own 'masala' image and formulating it into a meaningful one. With his current choices, one can easily say that Akshay has become a star with a conscience.