Rajinikanth, in a special video celebrating 50 years of the actor in cinema, revisited the casting journey behind Padayappa , especially the initial desire to cast Aishwarya Rai as Neelambari. He recalled, "We wanted Aishwarya Rai to do the character of Neelambari. We tried to reach out to her after a lot of difficulties. If she had said yes to the movie, I was willing to wait for even 2–3 years because that character was like that."

In the video, he said, "It was imperative for that role to click - but we heard that she was not interested. Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and several names were considered. But, we were looking for that power in the heroine's eyes to pull off Neelambari. We wanted an arrogance in the character - and it was Ravikumar who suggested Ramya Krishnan’s name."

Ramya Kr

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