Sonakshi Sinha learned ‘maar-peet’ from Salman, Akshay and Ajay

In a career span of six years, Sonakshi Sinha has acted in numerous action films with big stars like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Shahid Kapoor, etc. In all these films, the aforementioned heroes have done all the action while she was busy playing their love interest. 

But with A R Murugadoss’ Akira, the girl finally gets a chance to perform fight scenes in abundance since she plays the titular role. During the trailer launch of the film, she revealed that she has learnt action scenes from the heroes she has been cast opposite all these years. 

When she was asked her favorite action co-star, she came up with a diplomatic answer. “Salman is Dabanng. Akshay is Rowdy. Ajay is Sardar. I have been working with them since five years and I have only learnt maar-peet (fights) from them.” 

Sonakshi also revealed that she signed the film after Akshay’s encouragement. “Akshay knows Murugadoss sir and he knows the story of Akira. Before I started the film, he told me that this will be a game-changer and a fantastic film for me. He said, ‘Aankh band karke kar le kar le (mimics Akshay and laughs).’ He has been very supportive.” 

The actress went on to share that she wasn’t expecting such a film to be offered from Murugadoss. “He is a fantastic director. I felt that with my very first film with him (Holiday). Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised when he came to me with this film. He said that we need to make it a hard-hitting film about this girl’s character. I was like, ‘You want me to do it?’ He said, ‘Yes, for sure. You can pull it off.’ He was very trusting.”

Akira, which also stars Anurag Kashyap and Konkona Sen Sharma, will release on 2 September 2016.