Aishwarya gets down and dirty

In real life or on the Cannes red carpet, Aishwarya Rai never puts in an appearance unless she looks perfectly groomed with not a single hair out of place. But in Raavan, her character is dishevelled for major stretches of the film.

Ash reveals, “Everyday, it was a 5 o’clock wake up call. You take a shower, freshen up and then you get dirty; you put mud on your self, you rip your clothes, get drenched. It was like we were going hiking,” she quips.

Sporting the muddied look, she had to shoot for two versions, Hindi and Tamil, simultaneously. “After shooting both versions, if Mani found something more appealing in one version, we would go back to do the same in the other version too. Every take was unforgettable. Mani had put us in such a state that all our faculties as actors and as persons were on high alert,” she adds.