‘From Rajesh Khanna, I learnt what not to do’: Akshay Kumar on why he chose Amitabh Bachchan over father-in-law as inspiration | Bollywood News

3 min readChennaiMar 16, 2026 12:54 PM Rajesh Khanna was the first actor to attain superstardom in the Hindi film industry. However, as quickly as the late veteran star rose to fame, his downfall—particularly after the rise of Amitabh Bachchan in the film industry during the 1970s—was equally brutal. Recently, Akshay Kumar called Amitabh his inspiration as an actor, but when asked why not his father-in-law Rajesh Khanna, the actor gave an intriguing reply.
Recently, during an interaction with India Today, Akshay was asked to name the actors who have inspired him the most. He took the names of Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar and Mehmood. When he was then asked why he didn’t mention his father-in-law Rajesh Khanna, he responded, “I have learnt a lot from my father-in-law. I learnt from him what not to do. He used to actually sit me down and tell me about all the makes that he had done. He was the number one superstar that India had seen.”
Akshay recalled how, as a child, he used to stand in the crowd outside Rajesh Khanna’s bungalow to get a glimpse of the actor, and he called it ‘kismat’ that he is now married to the same superstar’s daughter — Twinkle Khanna. “When I was 7–8 years old, I would pass Carter Road with my father. Me and my parents used to stand outside Rajesh Khanna‘s bungalow Aashirwad, and my father would make me sit on his shoulders just to get a glimpse of him. This is Kismat. I never imagined that his daughter would be my wife.”
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This isn’t the first time Akshay has spoken about his father-in-law’s failures. Earlier, in an interview with Galatta Plus, Akshay was asked what he thinks about failure and success, and he took Khanna’s example and said, “I don’t let anything enter my head. I have seen a lot of people fall down, I have heard many stories. My father-in-law has taught me so much, because he had seen the biggest success in life and then he saw a complete drop. I have heard stories. What I do is, I take knowledge from other people, and I realise that these things are just to be kept at a one-hand’s dance. My job is to just keep working.”
For the unversed, Rajesh Khanna was the first superstar of Hindi cinema and enjoyed an unprecedented run at the box office with 17 consecutive solo hits. However, his dominance began to face serious competition with the rise of Amitabh Bachchan in the early 1970s. Bachchan’s ‘angry young man’ image, popularised films like Zanjeer and Sholay, resonated strongly with audiences and gradually shifted the industry’s focus.
Around the same time, Rajesh Khanna began experiencing a sharp decline in his career, enduring several consecutive box office failures. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he struggled to reinvent himself. He later tried his luck on television as well, though that too did not work in his favour. Rajesh Khanna made occasional appearances in films in the later years of his life and was last seen in the 2014 film Riyasat.