Yash’s much-anticipated film Toxic, which arrived after the massive success of KGF, has underperformed at the box office and faced criticism from audiences and critics. The Geethu Mohandas directorial, which opened to over Rs 100 crore across 24,579 shows in India, has reportedly dropped to just Rs 24 lakh across 292 shows on Day 19. According to Sacnilk, the film has already wrapped up its Hindi theatrical run with around Rs 150 crore in the language, while its total collection stands at approximately Rs 300 crore. The film was reportedly made on a budget of over Rs 500 crore.

Following Toxic’s underwhelming performance, reports and social media discussions began circulating that Yash had dominated the filmmaking process, with some claiming that Geethu Mohandas was merely a namesake director. Akshay Oberoi, who plays a crucial role in the film, has now addressed the reports and spoken about his experience of working with Yash and Mohandas.

‘Sometimes even bad films work’

Speaking on the podcast Kadak, Akshay opened up about Toxic’s performance and admitted that dealing with a film’s failure is difficult. “It is very tough,” he said. “You can always do a post-mortem of things. If the film had worked, things would have been different. And not like only good films work. Sometimes, we have seen even worst films do great business.”

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Defending the effort that went into Toxic, the actor said there was no shortage of passion during its making.

“When you are deeply involved in a project, you understand every detail of it. You are aware of the scale at which you did the discussions about the film, script and characters. We gave our all to the project. But I don’t know why it hasn’t worked with people. It is unfortunate that it didn’t work, but I am still proud of the film,” he said.

“I believe it was a very ambitious project. We tried to give something new and unique to the audience. We shot it at an international level and so were the preparations, but I think somewhere in between, we missed our target,” he added.

Akshay said he did not want to blame anyone for the film’s shortcomings.

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“I won’t blame anyone for its shortcomings. All I know was everybody worked quite passionately for the film. While shooting Toxic, we all had become like a family — Nayanthara, Tara Sutaria, Yash, Kiara, and Geethu Mohandas. We made the best possible film we could, but its results are not in our control,” he said.

Akshay Oberoi on reports of Yash controlling Toxic

Addressing reports that Yash was deeply involved in the direction and other aspects of Toxic, Akshay said his experience on set was different.

“In my experience, I didn’t see anything like that. People who have purchased the tickets to watch the film have a right to express their opinion and perform a postmortem of the film. It is people’s personal social media accounts, and they get to write anything they want,” he said. “However, I was present on set and I know I was directed by one person — Geethu Mohandas. I genuinely hope that I get to work with her again,” Akshay added.

‘Yash only believes in himself’

Speaking about his co-star, Akshay described Yash as someone with a distinct approach to his career.

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“He is a different being altogether. I don’t know how to explain him as a person to anybody. I was already a Yash fan. His aura is completely different. And when I got to work with him, I got so influenced,” he said.

“He is a one-man show. He single-handedly turned a Kannada film into a pan-India phenomenon. With Toxic, he wanted to take Kannada cinema to an international level. It didn’t work, however. But at least he attempted. He was ambitious,” Akshay added.

The actor also spoke about Yash’s approach to finding work, contrasting it with his own experience in the industry.

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“He doesn’t wait for anybody. Actors like me, who are hungry for work, keep dialing producers and directors and ask them for work. He only believes in himself. And he built all of this around him with KGF and Toxic,” Akshay said. “His directors will tell you how supportive he is. He is involved in every film, irrespective of whether people give him credit as a producer,” he added.

‘Yash influenced me a lot’

Akshay also recalled how his association with Yash continued after the shoot, particularly during the post-production process.

“I have learnt a lot about my own ambition from him. Also about the industry, business, filmmaking. I am extremely inspired by him. And it is because of him, I realised that there are multiple ways to become a huge star. It is not just luck, but you can carve your own path. I want to follow his footsteps,” he said.

Akshay revealed that the two often discussed various aspects of Toxic during post-production.

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“Yash and I bonded mostly after the film’s shoot. During post-production. We often did discussions around Hindi dialogues for the film. Script and dialogues. We would discuss business and VFX. He involved me in all this process and taught me so much. He respected my passion for cinema. He took me under his wings and made me help him through the entire filmmaking,” he recalled.

‘Dubbed for many characters, altered it with AI’

Akshay said the experience was unusual for him as actors are generally not involved in the post-production process to such an extent. “I have had very few experiences as such as mostly we would never be involved in post-production. There are so many lines in the film of different characters which I have dubbed and later altered using AI. I was just doing it as I was in love with what we were doing,” he said.