Abhishek Bachchan turned down Mani Ratnam

Abhishek Bachchan"s first major hit was Mani Ratnam"s Yuva. He then did Guru opposite wife Aishwarya Bachchan. The trio will now come together in the upcoming Raavan. The film has generated a lot of interest, especially as Abhishek will play Raavan to Ash"s Sita. Aishwarya will also do the Tamil version Raavanan, but minus Abhishek.

Raavan will be dubbed in Tamil as Raavanan and in Telugu as Villian. Aishwarya is adept in Tamil, having done films like Iruvar and Jeans before. A source said that Abhishek was also approached by Mani to portray the same character in Raavanan. He would play Beera in Hindi version and Dev in its Tamil counterpart. The actor initially agreed but later felt that the language would pose too much of a problem. He reportedly stated he did not want to do a film in a language which he did not understand. He preferred to opt out of the film as he felt he wouldn"t be able to do justice to the role.

Mani was quite keen to cast him but Abhishek managed to convince him. Southern actor Prithviraj now plays Dev's character in Raavanan. It would have been nice to see Abhishek in a South Indian film!