Akshay Oberoi opens up on undergoing combat training for Toxic with Yash: It was quite exhilarating

Akshay Oberoi talks about his action preparation for Yash-starrer Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups and how action has been rewarding for him on screen

Akshay Oberoi will next be seen alongside actor Yash in Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups, which marks his South debut and the actor will be seen in an action avatar in the film. For the same, he underwent rigorous combat training for about a month before the shoot, and continued it through the course of the shoot. He recalls it as an exhilarating experience.

Akshay Oberoi

“I've been doing action for a long time. I learnt martial arts as a kid and continued that training into my college years. I underwent rigorous physical training for about three weeks before the shoot and that continued during the whole shoot. Learning the choreography beats for specific action sequences was quite exhilarating. We had a world-class action team from across the globe, and it was tonnes of fun training and learning from them,” he says.

Speaking about his preparation, Akshay Oberoi shares, “The action in Toxic is on a different scale altogether. I’ve done action in my earlier films, but what this film expected from me was on another level. The choreography, the detailing, the physical drills, everything was designed to build not just muscle but endurance, timing, and mind–body sync. The director and action team had a very specific vision, with its own rules.”

Talking about his co-star, Akshay raves, “He is the Rocking Star Yash, the main protagonist of the film. So, of course, the action was alongside him and it was very cool and slick. The teaser has just come out and you can get a glimpse of how larger-than-life the film is going to look. I’m quite excited about that.”

Ask him how action is different for him than the dramas that he has done and he says, “Action is very physical. So at the end of the day, different parts of you are drained when you do action. When you go home, you are just exhausted physically. But when you do drama, you're exhausted emotionally. At the end of the day, if you've done your job correctly, you should be exhausted either way, just in different ways.”