Mani Rathnam and his office approached several bollywood beauties to work in the film as Abhishek Bachchan's sister Sooparnakha, but they were not prepared to work with Abhishek. Even after being assured by director Mani Rathnam that Sooparnakha's character was a substantial one in the film, only second to Aishwarya Rai who played the main lead, nobody agreed to his proposal.
Finally, Mani Rathnam had to go to southern film industry and select Priya Mani for the character of Sooparnakha in the upcoming mega-budget flick 'Raavana'.
Sources say that Abhishek Bachchan is a big hero in bollywood, with a bright future due to his upcoming big budget flicks, and bollywood beauties were apprehensive of playing a sister to him due to precisely this factor. In fact, their thinking was that once they play the role of sister to Abhishek Bachchan, no producer would ever select them to play a romantic role opposite him in any future flick.
And this negative thinking on their part led to refusal to work with a seasoned director like Mani Rathnam in 'Raavana'. In the process, the bollywood actresses even forgot Aishwarya Rai-Shah Rukh Khan brother-sister act in 'Josh', wherein Aishwarya was romantically involved with Chandrachur Singh. And this had not prevented Aditya Chopra from casting Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya in romantic roles in his blockbuster 'Mohabbatein.'
However, this sister syndrome was not limited to Bollywood and extended to southern film industry as well. In fact, Priya Mani was not the first choice for the character of Soopanakha and had to be penciled in only after Nanyantara refused to play the part of Abhishek Bachchan's sister in the film.
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