Preity Zinta made her acting debut with Shah Rukh Khan and Manisha Koirala’s 1998 film, Dil Se. She played a supporting role in Mani Ratnam’s directorial. Preity then starred in a lead role opposite Bobby Deol in Soldier the same year. The actress has worked in all three Khans of Bollywood, superstars SRK, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan. Apart from them, Preity also collaborated with superstar Akshay Kumar in Sangharsh in the 90s. The actress once praised Akshay for being a gentleman and recalled her ‘newcomer days’ from the Sangharsh shoot.
During an episode of her show, Up Close & Personal with PZ on YouTube, Preity Zinta shared her experience of working with Akshay Kumar in the initial days of her career. Preity expressed that she admires, loves, and respects her co-star Akshay as he remained decent with her while she was a newcomer in the film industry.
Preity Zinta, who shared the couch with Akshay Kumar on the show, added that he never made her feel as if she is a newcomer or acted like a superstar. Elaborating on it, Preity shared that Khiladi Kumar never called the actress out for not delivering her dialogues properly.
The Dil Chahta Hai actress recalled when they were shooting a track for the 1999 film, Sangharsh. Preity remembered how Akshay made her feel comfortable while shooting a sequence from the song on the sets of Sangharsh.
“Aap lete hue the aur I had to come and bend there aur mera top niche gira ja raha tha. Aur aap piche se usko khichke aur mereko pakadke hum log shot karrhe the ((You laid there and I had to come and bend there and my top was falling. And you pulled it from the back and held me followed by which we shot the scene),” Preity said.
“So I thought jo heroes hamare saath film mein kaam karte hain wo logon ke liye hero nahin heroines ke liye bhi hero hote hain. (So I thought that the heroes who work with us in films aren’t just heroes for the audience but also the heroines,” she added.
Years later, Preity Zinta worked with Akshay Kumar in Shirish Kunder’s 2006 film, Jaan-E-Mann which co-starred Salman Khan in the lead role.
