Padayappa Re-release: Before Ramya Krishnan, Rajinikanth Wanted THIS Actor To Play Neelambari

Rajinikanth and director KS Ravikumar's Padayappa is set to re-release in theatres on 12 December coinciding with the actor's 75th birthday, Ahead of the release Rajinikanth shared a special video, in which

he revisited the journey behind his 1999 film and revealed an interesting detail about the cast. He said that before Ramya Krishnan came on board for the film, he wanted a popular Bollywood actress to play the part.

Padayappa Re-release: Rajinikanth Wanted THIS Actress To Play Neelambari, After She Said NO...

He revealed that he was keen on having Aishwarya Rai on board the film “We wanted Aishwarya Rai to do the character of Neelambari. We tried to reach out to her after a lot of difficulties. If she had said yes to the movie, I was willing to wait for even 2–3 years because that character was like that. It was key point for that role to click... but we heard that she was not interested. Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and several names were considered. But, we were looking for that power in the heroine’s eyes to pull off Neelambari. We wanted an arrogance in the character – and it was Ravikumar who suggested Ramya Krishnan’s name.”

He also said that took inspiration for the character Neelambari from Nandini from Kalki’s popular Tamil literary novel, Ponniyin Selvan. “It is close to my heart. I love Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan and wanted to do a subject revolving around the Nandini character…and the result was Padayappa. I suggested the title, but its director, KS Ravikumar, was not convinced… but I requested him to go ahead,” he explained.

Interestingly, Aishwarya Rai played the role of Nandini in Mani Ratnam's two-part film Ponniyin Selvan (2022), which was inspired from the epic. Rajinikanth and Aishwarya have starred director Shankar's Enthiran which released in 2010.Rajinikanth’s film Padayappa starred Sivaji Ganesan, Soundarya, and Abbas in pivotal roles, and the film’s music by AR Rahman became one of its talking points.