{"id":219663,"date":"2026-01-04T08:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T08:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219663\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T08:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T08:30:08","slug":"rakesh-bedi-compares-akshaye-khanna-in-dhurandhar-to-shatrughan-sinha-in-his-prime-more-loved-than-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/219663\/","title":{"rendered":"Rakesh Bedi compares Akshaye Khanna in Dhurandhar to Shatrughan Sinha in his prime: \u2018More loved than hero\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Updated on: Jan 04, 2026 10:27 am IST <\/p>\n<p>    Rakesh Bedi spoke about Dhurandhar co-star Akshaye Khanna becoming a \u2018lovable villain\u2019 with the Aditya Dhar film.\u00a0     <\/p>\n<p>If there is one person who walked away from Aditya Dhar\u2019s Dhurandhar stealing attention despite playing the villain, it has to be <a class=\"backlink\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/topic\/akshaye-khanna\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"Akshaye Khanna\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Akshaye Khanna<\/a>. His co-star, Rakesh Bedi, in an <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VmK1kQCmscM\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"backlink\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"interview\">interview <\/a>with Faridoon Shahryarm, called him a \u2018lovable villain\u2019 and compared him to Shatrughan Sinha in his prime.<\/p>\n<p>     <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Akshaye_Khanna_Dhurandhar_1767497860773_1767497867364.jpg\" alt=\"Bollywood actor Akshaye Khanna dances to FA9LA in Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar. \" title=\"Bollywood actor Akshaye Khanna dances to FA9LA in Aditya Dhar's Dhurandhar. \"\/>   Bollywood actor Akshaye Khanna dances to FA9LA in Aditya Dhar&#8217;s Dhurandhar.   Rakesh Bedi calls Akshaye Khanna \u2018lovable\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Akshaye might have played the notorious Rehman Dakait in Dhurandhar, but there\u2019s one song that upped his cool factor. And that is Flipperachi\u2019s <a class=\"backlink\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\/bollywood\/akshaye-khanna-dance-scene-in-dhurandhar-song-fa9la-was-one-take-impromptu-last-minute-film-choreographer-vijay-ganguly-101765634032953.html\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"FA9LA\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FA9LA<\/a>. Agreeing with how the song changed it all for Akshaye, Rakesh said, \u201cHis character has a flamboyance that is enhanced by the song. This is a lethal combination. When a villain becomes lovable, then he becomes more loved than the hero. For example, <a class=\"backlink\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\/bollywood\/shatrughan-sinha-defends-paparazzi-after-jaya-bachchan-s-gande-pant-comment-101765379483747.html\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"Shatrughan Sinha\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Shatrughan Sinha<\/a>, at the peak of his career, was greeted with cheers and claps in theatres, despite playing a villain in every film. He was a lovable villain, not a cruel one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the flamboyance of his character, Rakesh recollects that Akshaye mostly kept to himself on the set. \u201cI am the type who speaks to everyone on set and cracks jokes with everyone. Akshaye, however, is different. He would sit in the corner quietly and read his books, or he would be looking at his phone. But whenever we sat together before the shot, we had very intellectual conversations. He asked me a lot about my theatre. I also asked him questions. So we had some good conversations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Rakesh remarked that Akshaye might be \u2018laying low\u2019 since the film&#8217;s release, as he hasn\u2019t been able to get in touch with him.<\/p>\n<p> About Dhurandhar<\/p>\n<p>Dhurandhar tells the story of Jaskirat Singh Rangi, alias Hamza Ali Mazari (Ranveer Singh), who is sent on an undercover mission to Lyari, Pakistan. Rehman Dakait (Akshaye Khanna) is the leader of an alleged militant gang. Rakesh played Jameel Jamali, a senior politician, in the film. Sanjay Dutt, R Madhavan, <a class=\"backlink\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\/bollywood\/dhurandhar-actor-rakesh-bedi-reacts-to-criticism-about-him-kissing-20-year-old-sara-arjun-at-event-101766057004560.html\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"Sara Arjun\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sara Arjun<\/a> and Arjun Rampal also play the lead roles. <a class=\"backlink\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\/bollywood\/rakesh-bedi-teases-story-of-dhurandhar-sequel-defends-the-violence-in-film-101766137787525.html\" data-vars-page-type=\"story\" data-vars-link-type=\"Manual\" data-vars-anchor-text=\"Dhurandhar 2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dhurandhar 2<\/a> will be released in theatres on March 19, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757321182_878_story_trending@2x.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"\/>           <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\" class=\"breadcrumbclick\" data-vars-event-label=\"Home_clicked\" data-vars-event-action=\"\/\" data-vars-event-cta=\"News\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">News<\/a> \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\" class=\"breadcrumbclick\" data-vars-event-label=\"Entertainment_clicked\" data-vars-event-action=\"\/entertainment\" data-vars-event-cta=\"Entertainment\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Entertainment<\/a> \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/entertainment\/bollywood\" class=\"breadcrumbclick\" data-vars-event-label=\"Bollywood_clicked\" data-vars-event-action=\"\/entertainment\/bollywood\" data-vars-event-cta=\"Bollywood\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bollywood<\/a> \/ Rakesh Bedi compares Akshaye Khanna in Dhurandhar to Shatrughan Sinha in his prime: \u2018More loved than hero\u2019   <\/p>\n<p> See Less <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated on: Jan 04, 2026 10:27 am IST Rakesh Bedi spoke about Dhurandhar co-star Akshaye Khanna becoming a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[44792,458,78488,146,85,46,65598,121247],"class_list":["post-219663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-akshaye-khanna","tag-celebrities","tag-dhurandhar","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-rakesh-bedi","tag-rakesh-bedi-on-akshaye-khanna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}