Aishwarya Rai wanted this South Indian actor for her movie

Actor R Madhavan has confirmed he dropped out of Aishwarya Rai's Fanney Khan due to date conflicts and Rajkummar Rao bagged the movie. In the movie, Maddy was supposed to romance Aishwarya.

Madhavan was approached for Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Prernaa Arora's upcoming production, which stars Bollywood legends Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles.

The filmmakers and Aishwarya were keen to cast Maddy in the movie. However, the hunk had to leave the film because of date problems. "I loved the script and was keen to be part of an interesting ensemble, sadly, I couldn't commit to the project due to date issues. I wish the team of all the luck," Madhavan said in a statement. 

On the other hand, Rajkummar Rao who is now the part of the film told a daily, ''She's (Aishwarya) the most beautiful woman in the world. It's a great story, there's a lot of love, and the content is not just entertaining but is detailed and different. There will be lots of workshops and readings.''

Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan have started working on Fanney Khan and are sharing the screen space after 17 years. 

Fanney Khan is the Hindi adaptation of the 2000 Dutch release Everybody's Famous, directed by Dominique Deruddere, which was also nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 73rd Academy Awards.

The film will be directed by debutant Atul Manjrekar. The film is based on the story of a 17-year-old aspiring singer whose career takes off after her unemployed father, who also harbours the dreams of becoming a musician, decides to kidnap the top singer of the country.

Rajkummar Rao's upcoming film, Newton recently came out with its trailer – He plays a morally bound man who tries to hold a fair and honest election. The film is all set to release on September 22.
 

• Aishwarya Rai
• Fanney Khan
• R Madhavan