Katrina rescues Akshay from fire

Katrina Kaif pulls off stunt, bearing a hefty Akshay Kumar on her shoulder for a scene in welcome

Being an actor Akshay Kumar has been exposed to all kinds of strenuous action scenes for rescuing his heroines from climbing atop skyscrapers to jumping into the deep sea. But this was one scene in Anees Bazmee"s Welcome that had the macho action hero in splits he had to be rescued by his heroine Katrina Kaif!

Narrating the scene, Akshay adds jokingly, “What man in his right mind wouldn"t want to be rescued and carried off by a beautiful woman? It"s every man"s dream come true. My mom carried me for nine months so why can"t Katrina carry me?"

Not Akki"s idea

Akshay is known to conceive of such whacky concepts. Was it his idea this time too? He laughs, “No. It was a scene where I go into a fire to rescue Katrina but when I go inside I faint and she ends up lifting me and carrying me out of the fire. It was Anees" idea. In fact when he told me about it he was a bit sceptical. He thought I might not like the idea of being rescued by my leading lady. But I told him that it was a wonderful concept."

Ton-a-thon

So how did Katrina pull off carrying Akshay Kumar and walking out of a building? Katrina spills the beans, “When they narrated the scene I was apprehensive as Akshay is quite massively built. It would be like lifting a ton of bricks and I said no way am I going to carry a ton of bricks on my shoulders.

But I didn"t have to actually lift him as we had cable work to do that. I had to put out the fire though." Producer Firoz Nadiadwala informs us, “In fact, while shooting for this particular sequence that Akshay burnt his right hand in the fire. It happened on the last day of shoot and Akshay didn"t tell us till the shooting was complete. We had kept telling him not to do the scene as it was quite risky but he insisted on going ahead."

Akki and Kat in Welcome