Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar is certainly one of the most loved and celebrated celebrities in the Hindi film fraternity. But did you know, he had essentially joined the industry as it offered a lot of money? Speaking at the World Toilet Summit on Monday in Mumbai, Akshay revealed that he was drawn to Bollywood solely because of money since he was someone who was struggling back then.

The actor, who started out his film career as an action hero, said at the event, "I did a lot of action films earlier because I knew nothing else. For 11-13 years, I did only action. I did Thai boxing in Bangkok for five years. Back then I had made up my mind that I'll come to Mumbai and open a martial arts school," as quoted by a leading news agency.

"Honestly, the only thing which brought me to the industry was only money. I just came here to earn money," he further added.

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Pointing out how he earned Rs 21,000 simply by posing as a model, Akshay stated, "I used to get paid Rs 5,000 a month when I used to teach martial arts. Once someone asked me to do modelling. I tried modelling for a furniture showroom. There was a model and we both posed and I got Rs 21,000 within two hours! 'I thought what better place to be than here!' I thought now I'll do modelling and then eventually entered films."

Talking about his current projects, Akshay said that he believes commercial films with social messages have a wider reach than documentaries. "I consider myself lucky who got an opportunity to do commercial cinema and give people a social message in a very different way," he concluded.

He will next be seen in Shankar's 2.0, which also stars Rajinikanth and is slated to release on November 29.