The Khiladi of Bollywood Akshay Kumar’s debut guest appearance as a karate instructor in Mahesh Bhatt’s Aaj lasted merely 17 seconds. Notwithstanding, the actor has come a long way since the 1987 movie when it comes to cameos and has made this department his own.

And with his latest guest release in the recently-released Naam Shabana, here’s testimony to why we wouldn’t mind seeing him in such roles more often.

Breaking stereotypes

We’ve only seen homosexual male characters in Bollywood in their exaggeratedly effeminate avatars. The Khiladi, however, took it upon himself to smash the glass ceiling by playing a brawny gay character in the action film Dishoom.

“In our country we have athletes, who are gay men and getting Akshay Kumar symbolises that he is a homosexual in the film, but he overpowers the two men (John Abrahan and Varun Dhawan) in the film. We have shown homosexual is stronger than straight men,” the director, Rohit Dhawan made of Akshay’s role.

Akki impresses as chocolate boy

A lot of young men these days could draw inspiration from BFF Ajay, played by Akshay, who got out of the friendzone with Madhuri Dixit in Shah Rukh Khan’s Dil To Pagal Hai. His performance as the chocolate boy NRI doctor still sticks in a lot of 90s kids’ memories, though there’s a plot twist in this love angle, in case you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Right down the action alley

Om Shanti Om was a movie where Bollywood films ruled as the meta-text (a movie talking about movies). So Akshay fitted like a glove in this ‘Khiladi’ cameo, dodging bullets with cupped hands and shooting them back from his pelvis. Like everything else in this film, this sequence was also very dramatic; but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.

Elaborate list

Akshay’s guest appearances total up to more than a dozen across various languages. With Fugly, Bombay Talkies, Hey Bro and Breakaway comprising this list, expect a wide variety of such performances from this versatile actor in the future as well.