Akshay Kumar's death-defying leap

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar performs stunt on the sets of ‘Khiladi 786’ as co-star Asin looks on. (SUPPLIED)

Published Sunday, July 29, 2012

By Staff

Akshay Kumar loves playing for the cameras.

So when the director shouts, ‘action’, Kumar is known to take the word literally in a bid to outdo himself with his second love: death defying stunts; the first being wife Twinkle Khanna and son Aarav of course.

It wasn’t surprising then, that the adrenaline junkie dazzled his film’s crew once again while working on the action-comedy ‘Khiladi 786’ when he made an impromptu leap from the balcony of a bungalow, perched 45ft off the ground – without any safety equipment.

Although Kumar was provided with a cable and harness for the action scene, he preferred to show off his daredevilry by ditching the safety measures and expertly diving onto the surrounding boxes and mattresses placed below.

Risky, yet spontaneous, Kumar said his experience was, “thrilling with lots of fun.”

An eyewitness from the crew described the scene, saying: “The production unit and stunt director Jai Singh insisted that Akshay use a cable wire but he refused.

“The entire unit got together to watch Akshay’s stunt scene and were amazed at his decision to do it without any duplicate or safety measures.”

Kumar, who has a background in martial Arts, is famed for performing his own stunts in his films, and is also an avid extreme sports enthusiast.

The actor has put his life and limb on the line several times for his films, with the most memorable and dangerous one in recent times staged in the murky waters of his action film ‘Blue’, where he almost got killed swimming with sharks when a head gash oozed blood attracting the predators.

At the time he told Emirates 24|7: “Let’s not blow this out of proportion; you make it sound like I’m an addict. I do my own stunts because my producer and my audience are paying to see me, not someone that looks like me who can do my dirty work.

“But yes, I was injured while shooting for Blue in the Bahamas. It was just like any other day of the shoot, diving down to 80ft and being surrounded by 40 bated sharks.

“However, on the day I was kung fooing a goon at that depth, and the force of the kick I gave him propelled me upwards, causing me to crack the open my head on the rusted roof of a shipwreck.

“The blood forced the stunt coordinator to bate the sharks as far away from me as possible so they could take me to the surface before I was eaten alive perhaps. I’d call it pretty serious. They don’t call us heroes for nothing.”

From what we hear, pregnant wife Twinkle is none to pleased by this latest development.

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