It is Akshaye Khanna’s year, and we are just bidding adieu to it. Scroll through social media, and every second reel is of the actor, lording over the frame, grooving to the catchy beats of FA9LA , the song by Bahrain-based rapper Flipperachi, used in the blockbuster Dhurandhar. Akshaye plays Pakistani gangster Rehman Dakait, and with his intense stare and a Marlon Brando-coded dialogue delivery, shines the brightest in a multi-starrer. Rewind to the beginning of the year, and you have him playing a kohl-eyed Aurangzeb in Chaava. It’s a tricky one.

Mughal emperors in the current cinema are being reduced to temple-demolishing, chicken-leg-tearing beasts. Akshaye, however, holds his own. His Aurangzeb is less plain vile and more calculative, and he plays him with a silent depth, portraying the highly debated-on emperor with a necessary roundedness.

But amidst all the adulation coming his way, Akshaye, reportedly, is off at his Alibaug home, away from the bustle of Mumbai. Akshaye is a famous recluse, with no over-enthusiastic PR or social media presence. His interviews are few, and in most of them, he is reserved but real. A 2019 actors roundtable has Akshaye being amazed and awkward as other panelists, including Ranveer Singh and Ayushmann Khurrana, reminisce and laud his performances. An old interview has him being content with himself when asked about his marriage prospects (“Having a wife, a child, a family, is the biggest responsibility for a man. I am happy, alone. No responsibility. Fantastic life I have got here).