There was a time in the Bollywood film industry when actors changed names before becoming stars, whether it was Dilip Kumar, Madhubala, Jeetendra or Rajesh Khanna, this formula turned out to be a hit for all stars. Many stars that came after also followed this trend and became successful by changing their names. The name of Bollywood player Kumar i.e. Akshay Kumar is also included in this list.
Actually, Akshay Kumar’s real name is Rajeev Bhatia. Let us know here why Rajeev Bhatia became Akshay Kumar. By the way, the actor’s connection to change his name is also with the 90s hero Kumar Gaurav.
Akshay Kumar’s name was formerly Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia. When he came to Mumbai, he did the job of a martial arts teacher here. After this he was also busy in modeling. Then suddenly luck turned and director Mahesh Bhatt needed a karate coach for a scene in one of his films ‘Aaj’. This role was only for a few seconds. Bhatia had a desire to appear in movies, so he accepted this role. This movie turned out to be a flop at the box office, but it changed the whole life of Rajiv Bhatia. It was during the shooting of ‘Aaj’ that he decided to change his name to Akshay Kumar.
In a retrospective interview, Akshay Kumar had revealed that he had a 4.5 second role in the film. He used to watch the performance of Kumar Gaurav, whose name was Akshay in the movie. Akshay Kumar liked this name so much that he one day went to the court and changed his name. “And I just wanted to go and change my name and I went to Bandra East court and did that. I have all the certificates as proof,” he said.
He thinks he got lucky and after that he started making movies, finally making his leading debut in 1991 with Saugandh. He got his breakthrough in 1992 with the thriller ‘Khiladi’. Due to which he also got the name of Khiladi Kumar. Akshay Kumar soon made his mark as an action hero with movies like ‘Deedar’, ‘Mohra’, ‘Main Khiladi Tu Anari’, ‘Suhaag’ and ‘Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi’. Since then, Akshay Kumar continues to present hit movies.