Afew years ago, Vidya Balan had wondered where Akshaye Khanna had disappeared. But here he is today, right at the top, after beginning the year as Aurangzeb, the Sambhaji-tormentor of Chhaava. Vidya found him “Superbbbb” and Chhaava grossed over ₹800 crore worldwide, making it the biggest Hindi hit of 2025. Akshaye has rounded off the year impressively as Sher-e-Baloch Rehman Dakait of Pakistan. From his smile that simultaneously disarms and hides a dozen deceitful secrets to his dance moves and family man moments, Akshaye is the centrepiece of the first instalment of Dhurandhar.
Akshaye’s leap to the top of the heap is an endorsement of the magnetic draw of a super villain. However controlled his own performance, Ranveer Singh, the hero of Dhurandhar, had to take a backseat as Akshaye, the Balochi gangster-politician, took the wheel. It has happened before. Ranveer himself had stolen the show as the maniacal Khilji in Padmaavat (2018), even though Shahid Kapoor had also delivered a polished Raja Ratan Singh, the husband of Padmavati. But while Ranveer’s Khilji is on easy recall, most won’t even remember Shahid’s name in the film.
Toxicity has its fans. Ranbir Kapoor’s Ranvijay Singh and Bobby Deol’s Abrar Haque in Animal (2023) boosted their star ratings in a manner no romcom did. Bobby Deol, forgotten as the actor taking refuge in Restyl tablets and alcohol, found fame as the womanising, criminally inclined godman of Prakash Jha’s Aashram (2020), from where he began to soar again. As a baddie.
There have been spurts of compelling criminals like Gabbar Singh and Mogambo. But Amjad Khan and Amrish Puri were essentially villains and the heroes of Sholay and Mr India were equally cheered.
It’s heroes finding favour as vile and wicked villains that’s somewhat trendy. Actors like Akshaye’s own father Vinod Khanna had walked away with all the applause when he played a suave gangster in Prakash Mehra’s Haath Ki Safai (1974). A chartbusting Wada kar le sajna was even picturised on him and Simi Garewal. But like umpteen films where Bachchan played the angry young man on the wrong side of the law or SRK in Darr and Baazigar, or Akshaye himself in Humraaz, heroes of yore who played negative roles didn’t look like the noxious beasts who’re being feted today.
While the felicitation of toxicity may be disturbing, it is also an indication of the audience’s ability to sift, pick and cheer a stellar performance as opposed to hailing bland, heroic goodness.
Akshaye’s success has come to him after much heartache. He had taken off in a big way even though his debut film Himalay Putra (1997) had flopped. But the young man who wore an easy lopsided smile and stood his own in films like Deewangee and Race soon faced a hair-raising speed-breaker, a problem he shared with Raaj Kumar, Navin Nischol, Rakesh Roshan and Anupam Kher. All had to turn to wigmakers early in life. Raaj Kumar survived as a character artiste with his unique “Jaani” swagger; Rakesh Roshan and Navin, a superstar after Sawan Bhadon (1970), lost their stardom, and Kher was fortunate he was never a conventional hero. Akshaye floundered with strange-looking hairstyles before he could be his natural self as the sharp IGP of Drishyam 2 and then the prosthetics of Aurangzeb came to his rescue. “It’s tough delivering dialogues and giving the right expressions with so much prosthetics,” he said, but pulled it off with such excellence that he has the best success rate this year. Dhurandhar, the slow starter, has become the most talked-about film of 2025, Aditya Dhar bashers contributing to its growth.
In his younger days, Akshaye would look out of his car and want to tell the people on the road, “Hey, we’re on our way to make a movie.” That fascination for cinema has stuck and helped bring him back to where he belongs.
Bharathi S. Pradhan is a senior journalist and an author