Actor-producer Akshay Kumar plays a doting husband to the hilt. He’s currently preparing for the release of Padman, where he plays the protagonist. The movie is his wife Twinkle Khanna’s first venture as a producer, and Akki can’t stop praising her.

“She is a great producer,” Akshay says. “She has a good sense of great content and what kind of films she should make. Padman was her idea; it’s her content and Balki wrote it.”

The film is based on a short story from Twinkle’s book The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. The story was inspired by the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, a Tamil Nadu-based social activist, who revolutionised the concept of menstrual hygiene in rural India, by creating a low-cost sanitary napkin manufacturing machine.

From acting in multi-starrer films to playing the lead in his wife’s production, Akshay has come a long way himself. But he recalls a time he was made to feel like an outsider. “Yes, I was made to feel like that,” he says.

“I remember while doing two-hero movies, three or four of my films didn’t work, but the other actor’s did. We had an equal role, but he would get a suite and I would get a single room,” he sighs, without naming the actor. “He’d get an amazing car but I would be asked to come in the bus. Yes, that really happens! If my films work, I’d get a bigger room. Sometimes when my films would run well, I’d be shifted to first class from business class. When my films did exceptionally well, I’d even get a private jet.”