Villain Press Meet

As the D-day for release of ‘Villain’ approaches fast it is now the time for promotion of the movie. Thus the producer cum script writer cum director Maniratnam along with his better half Suhasini, the male lead Vikram, female lead Aishwarya Rai and the second heroine Priyamani stormed Hyderabad and were together in a press meet.

Maniratnam was very emotional while addressing the gathering and said that though the movie has been named as ‘Raavan’ in Hindi and ‘Raavanan’ in Tamil, it could not be the same in Telugu for different reasons. He said, “Thanks to Veturi garu who brought an apt name as ‘Villain’ in Telugu. This movie is certainly not a ‘Villain’ based movie but one has to see the entire film to understand what the real character of ‘Villain’. Vikram does the lead role as usual in an impeccable manner and Aishwarya Rai is a great actress to work with. I will soon do a Telugu film.”

Vikram said, “This opportunity to work with Maniratnam is a rare one and I can say it’s a dream come true. Infact I wanted to confine myself with the Tamil version and as it progressed with Maniratnam’s encouragement I ended up dubbing for Telugu also which I feel has come out very well. My working with Aishwarya Rai has been very interesting and it’s a real fun working with this great lady. My Hindi has not been that good and it was the assistant director Karan’s constant encouragement that kept me going in the role I played in both the versions.”

Aishwarya Rai while speaking, “I started working with Maniratnam way back in ‘Iruvar’. And now after these many years I find working with him is still a fun. My role in this film is called ‘Raagini’, a classical dancer on whom the film is based. In this movie I acted in two different languages and never found it difficult since the entire crew was the same. But it is not the case with Vikram who had to keep changing his make-up due to different roles in both the languages. My schedules permitting if Maniratnam ventures on a Telugu project I would certainly love to be part of it.”

Suhasini, known for her acting skills appeared as an anchor in this film and she conveyed her happiness in taking up that role and further added as, “I also wrote the dialogues for this film and am sure it turned out very well. I hope ‘Villain’ will surely be a grand success in Telugu also.”

“With this movie I’m debuting in Hindi and as I had to do two versions at the same time I kept on changing from half-saree to ghagra choli and you all know it’s not that easy, but still I enjoyed. My doing this role under Mani sir is a great opportunity”, said Priyamani.

‘Villain’ is releasing in worldwide theaters on June 18th. Musical scores and background score is by AR Rahman.