- Asin, Dasavatharam, India, 2007. Planning the most roles played by an actor, Kamal Hassan’s choice of different actresses opposite his ten characters (the multi-lingual Tamil star Trisha, plus: Vidya Balan, Bhoomika Chawla, Nithya Das, Vasundhara Das, Meera Jasmine, Jyothika, Meena, Nadia Moidu, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Mumtaj, Nayanthara, Kiran Rathod, Sameera Reddy, Shriya Saran, Simran)) was slashed to two: Asin and Mallika Sherawat.
- Shriya Saran, Sivaji, India, 2007. For Bollywood, the casting saga of Sivaji’s girlfriendmatched a Bond Girl hunt. Aishwarya Rai accepted Tamizhselvi to thank director S Shankar for making her first hit, Jeans, in 1998.Then, her superstar marriage and hectic schedule forced her to quit. Ayesha Taki had problems with acting in Tamil,Rani Mukerji wanted too much money and the next queue includedJyothika, Trisha Krishnan, Nayantara and Sneha.
- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Endhiran/The Robot/Robo, India, 2010. During the decade it took Tollywooddirector S Shankar to make his dream project, various Hindi and Tamil ladies were set to be Sana, with whom therobot, Chitthi, falls in love.As it becameIndia’s priciest movie, $35m (double Bollywood’s Blue budget), with costumes, stunts, SFX by the Batman, Matrix, Jurassic Park teams, locations in Austria, Brazil, Peru, USA, it was inevitable who would co-star with Rajnkanth, 60,the bus conductor turned moustachioed megastar of 150 action movies and worshipped, quiteliterally, by fans of the Kannada, Malayalam, Ytamil, Telugu, language movies of South Indian cinema – India’s largest. “There’s no other beauty in our generation like Aishwarya Rai,” he said.“She’s a born artiste.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 3