‘All is well with Aishwarya, I’m open to work with her’

Director Madhur Bhandarkar, who was said to have a fallout with actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in 2011 over his film Heroine, says things are normal between them now and he is open to working with her.

Heroine had hit headlines after Aishwarya, who was signed to play the protagonist of his ambitious project, opted out due to her pregnancy. When asked Madhur on his current equation with Aishwarya, Madhur said, “It is nice... all good and normal. If there is an interesting script I would be okay to direct her. Yes, why not.” 

Heroine underwent quite a few hurdles as it was first offered to Kareena Kapoor Khan but after several meetings and discussions on the script, she had turned down the offer.

However, exact reasons could not be known. Later, the role went to Aishwarya and the film was announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2011. The shooting was supposed to commence from June, when Amitabh Bachchan broke the news of his daughter-in-law’s pregnancy on a micro blogging website.

The producers even took the decision to stall the project for the sake of Aishwarya’s health. Almost at the verge of being shelved, Kareena was finally roped in for the film but it failed to register success at the box office.

“With Heroine I wanted to show super stardom of an actress and her decline and what happens to her. I have no regrets to any of my films and I stand by them. “Heroine was made at a budget of Rs 21 crore and it earned Rs 40 crore. I am happy with the way the film shaped up,” the National 

Award-winning director told a media person.

On Aishwarya’s comeback film with Sanjay Gupta’s Jazbaa, he said he liked the trailer and even tweeted about it. Madhur, known for making women-centric films, is excited for his upcoming movie Calendar Girls that depicts lives of five girls, who hail from different regions of India selected for an annual calendar shoot.