‘Unfriendly’ Undertaker walked up to Akshay Kumar, pointed a finger at his face and said, ‘Panga’: Gulshan Grover recalls Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi anecdotes
Actor Gulshan Grover recalled his experience working with the wrestler Brian Lee in the film Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi, which starred Akshay Kumar in the lead role alongside Rekha. Lee played the role of The Undertaker, a popular wrestling character that he impersonated on what was then known as the WWF. The Undertaker was actually played on television by Mark William Calaway.
In an appearance on the Time Out with Ankit podcast, Gulshan said that he and Akshay both initially found ‘Undertaker’ very ‘unfriendly’, and they would wonder why. He also recalled how ‘Undertaker’ would play mind games with them when they weren’t shooting. “I was cast alongside Rekha ji, and I was told that Undertaker was in the film. Akshay isn’t just my friend, he’s my brother. We enjoy working with each other. He’s very inspiring, he’s very professional, always on time… We were staying at the same hotel, and he would come knocking on my door at 5:30 am, saying, ‘Let’s go’.”
Also read – Akshay Kumar recalls breaking his back, suffering slipped disc after lifting The Undertaker in Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi: ‘Peeth toot gayi thi’
He continued, “So, the both of us were waiting for Undertaker. He comes, but he’s very unfriendly. He didn’t speak to anybody. They brought him over from the airport, but he didn’t speak to anybody. He looked around, walked up towards Akshay Kumar, pointed a finger at him and said, ‘Panga’. And then he walked away. I have no idea where he learned that word. He was walking around looking dangerous, even Akshay wondered if he has a problem with him. That was his persona.”
Gulshan recalled that one evening, he and Akshay were chilling in a trailer together, and they noticed that it started shaking. Gulshan chalked it down to a storm, but later learned that ‘Undertaker’ was shaking it with his bare hands, just to mess with them. “He’d found out that we like chatting between shots in our trailer… But he was a wonderful person,” Gulshan said, adding that Lee would often ask his own assistants to also take care of another wrestler who was working on the film.
On the film’s 25th anniversary a few years ago, Akshay took to Twitter to share a picture and a note. “A hilarious note to mark 25 years to the release of #KhiladiyonKaKhiladi tomorrow! A fun fact though: it was wrestler Brian Lee who played The Undertaker in the film,” he tweeted. In a recent interview with Ranveer Allahbadia, Akshay recalled injuring his back while filming with Lee, and attempting to lift him up.
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