{"id":188765,"date":"2025-08-31T05:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T05:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188765\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T05:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T05:11:11","slug":"mammootty-shared-screen-with-aishwarya-rai-in-kandukondain-kandukondain-after-many-leading-actors-rejected-the-role-reveals-rajiv-menon-tamil-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/188765\/","title":{"rendered":"Mammootty shared screen with Aishwarya Rai in Kandukondain Kandukondain after many \u2018leading actors\u2019 rejected the role, reveals Rajiv Menon | Tamil News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rajiv Menon\u2019s 2000 romantic drama Kandukondain Kandukondain, featuring Mammootty<\/a>, Aishwarya Rai, Tabu, Ajith Kumar and Abbas in pivotal roles, charmed both the audience and critics. Moreover, the film\u2019s soundtrack, composed by AR Rahman, also became a fan favourite. Recently, director Rajiv Menon shared insights into the casting of Mammootty as Major Bala in Kandukondain Kandukondain.<\/p>\n

During a conversation with Sudhir Srinivasan, Rajiv admitted that the most challenging part of the casting process was finding the right actor for Major Bala, eventually played by Mammootty<\/a>. The filmmaker revealed that he had approached several \u2018leading actors\u2019 before offering the role to the Malayalam superstar. In Kandukondain Kandukondain, Major Bala carries a quiet, unexpressed love for Aishwarya Rai<\/a>\u2019s Meenakshi.<\/p>\n

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ALSO READ |<\/strong> Mammootty\u2019s heroine made her film debut in Malayalam at 15 without knowing a word of the language; now has a net worth of over Rs 2,000 crore<\/a><\/p>\n

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Rajiv Menon said, \u201cThe beauty of that character is that he is an alcoholic and a war veteran who lost a leg. But back then, some leading actors rejected the role, openly saying they did not want to play a man with one leg. Mammootty, on the other hand, never once considered it a drawback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also Read | \u2018I\u2019ll destroy your career\u2019: What Amitabh Bachchan told Shankar Mahadevan \u2018mazze mei\u2019 when he asked him to dub \u2018Kajra Re\u2019 portions<\/a><\/p>\n

The filmmaker also shared a fun anecdote from the sets of Kandukondain Kandukondain: \u201cMajor Bala had lost his right leg in the war. So Mammootty decided he should lean to the right while walking. But sometimes during the shoot, he would forget. One day, I noticed he was leaning to the left instead. My assistant director wasn\u2019t sure whether to point it out or not. Then Mammootty himself would ask, \u2018Am I supposed to lean to the right or the left?\u2019 It became one of the funniest moments on set.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rajiv Menon\u2019s 2000 romantic drama Kandukondain Kandukondain, featuring Mammootty, Aishwarya Rai, Tabu, Ajith Kumar and Abbas in pivotal…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":188766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[54944,54942,33523,185,171,105672,105670,105674,105673,105671,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-188765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-aishwarya","9":"tag-aishwarya-rai","10":"tag-aishwarya-rai-bachchan","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-kandukondain-kandukondain","14":"tag-mammootty","15":"tag-mammootty-aishwarya","16":"tag-mammootty-aishwarya-rai","17":"tag-rajiv-menon","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115121663910397954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}