Sai Pallavi was the first choice for 'Maheshinte Prathikaaram': Producer Santhosh T Kuruvilla

Did you know that Sai Pallavi was the first choice to play the heroine in 'Maheshinte Prathikaaram'? Not only that, it was the first film she signed after 'Premam'. Since she had to travel abroad to take an exam, Sai couldn’t do the role. It was producer Santhosh T Kuruvilla who revealed this in an interview on a YouTube channel.

“It wasn’t Aparna Balamurali who was supposed to play the heroine in 'Maheshinte Prathikaaram'. I gave my advance amount to Sai Pallavi. It was Anward Rashid who recommended her name and asked me to promptly sign the talented actor. I handed over the advance amount to Sai at Hotel International. Ashiq Abu was also with me. Anwar’s film was a superhit. But she had to be in Georgia to take an exam. Since we couldn’t wait that long, we signed Aparna Balamurali. Now she is a National Award-winning actor,” said Kuruvilla.

He said even for 'Mayanadhi', they planned a new heroine.

“Initially Aishwarya Lakshmy wasn’t chosen to play the heroine of 'Mayanadhi'. We had first cast a new face from Alappuzha. But she said she can’t wear sleeveless. And in that film, the heroine mostly wears sleeveless clothes. Since she had too many such constraints we decided to go with Aishwarya Lakshmy.

He also spoke about the casting changes in ‘Nna Thaan Case Kodu.’ “Vinay Fort was first chosen to play the role of Magistrate in 'Nna Thaan Case Kodu'. We also had his dates. But when we saw how beautifully Kunjikrishnan Master did that character during the pre-shoot, we decided to stick with him. Saiju Kurup was supposed to play the role played by Rajesh Madhavan and Grace Antony as the teacher. Jaffer Idukki was initially chosen to play the role of the Minister. But when most of these actors performed beautifully during the pre-shoot we decided to make some casting changes. The pre-shoot took a while. And that resulted in dates getting interchanged. But the fact is that we didn’t make any attempts to reshuffle the dates of those actors so as to accommodate them in the film,” said the producer.