By Hindustan Times
He is known as ‘Khiladi Kumar’ way to his action image. But considering the risky sequences and his insistence on not using body doubles, the makers of Rowdy Rathore, Prabhudeva’s stunt-laden film, had no option but to insure the star. And it’s believed that Akki’s insurance value is around Rs. 50 crore.
“Right on the start, when Prabhudeva narrated the script, Akshay was kicked in regards to the raw action scenes. But everyone was worried about him doing the scenes himself, considering they were slightly dangerous. And because everyone knows how much he loves action, we considered insuring him at a heavy premium even before the film started. We knew he’d insist on doing the various stunts personally, so we’re happy nothing tragic happened in the course of the shoot,” says an insider from the movie’s unit.
In Bollywood, the idea that of insurance is yet to catch on in a large way. While filmmakers like UTV, Karan Johar and Yash Raj Films have begun insuring their movies, the idea that of insuring the movie’s stars in addition remains to be novel to the Hindi film industry.
Some time ago, though, Sanjay Dutt, Imran Khan and Shruti Haasan were insured before they performed a stunt on top of a speeding train in Namibia for Luck (2009). But such cases are few and much between.
Although Akshay remained unavailable for comment, the makers of Rowdy Rathore confirm the insurance but won't discuss the price. “Akshay is a daredevil who does the riskiest of stunts by himself. UTV has always sorted its actors by insuring them beforehand and so it’s the similar for Akshay in Rowdy Rathore. However, we wouldn’t love to touch upon the insurance value,” says Shikha Kapur, senior vp (marketing), UTV Motion Pictures.
What’s interesting is that Akshay’s insurance value is higher than that of personalities from another field — cricket. For the continued Indian Premier League tournament, England batsman Kevin Pietersen has the top insurance cover among foreign players at Rs. 30 crore while Virat Kohli tops the chart among Indians with a canopy of Rs. 35 crore. Following him is Chennai Super Kings and India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni at Rs. 30 crore while Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar is insured for Rs. 14 crore.
