• My guest this week is the lone man standing in the way of the total condemnation of Hindi cinema. No, he's not a Bachchan or a Roshan. He's Akshay Kumar.

Thank you, Sir.

• It's marvellous to have you on Walk the Talk. You're one of the most popular actors among young people, women, grown-ups, and even old people.

Am I? Thank you very much. I feel very nice about that.

• And you are the most fun star.

Yes, I like doing fun stuff. I like doing things that people enjoy. I love entertaining people. Actually, I didn't realise that. Some of my directors made me realise that I like doing comedy and entertaining people. So I started doing it. It was great.

• You started out being serious. More of a maar-dhaad (kind of hero).

A lot of action and all that. But then everything started changing, thanks to the media, which said, 'He only does action, he's an actor who is just like furniture.' Actually they were being nice, for when I saw some of my old films, I don't think I was furniture but a furniture showroom. It was quite bad. I wanted to change my image, challenge myself, try to do something different.

• We've now caught you on the sets of another fun film.

Yes, that's Tashan. I'm shooting for it. Vijay (Krishna Acharya) is the director. It's a great film for me to do.

• Your fighting image came naturally, because you had learnt martial arts.

... contd.