By Jilawatan

She was last seen with Steve Martin in Pink Panther 2 is now busy wrapping up films back home. CNN-IBN catches up with Aishwarya Rai in Hyderabad on the sets of Shankar’s new film and gets the former Miss World talking about her unconventional romantic films with hubby Abhishek Bachchan and working with Tamil star Rajinikanth.

: Ash, what’s interesting about the films that you are doing with your husband Abhishek after marriage is that none of them is a conventional, pure romantic film. Sarkar Raj – just when a hint of a relationship began – ended, and in Mani Ratnam’s Ravan, it’s almost a forbidden relationship. Is that much more fun than a typical romantic film – which you both have done before?

Aishwarya Rai: We’d love to do it several times, trust me, we’d love to. We’d love to do an intense romantic film the conventional way as well. (laughs) But we’re glad the directors are coming with subjects and characters and…

By Jilawatan

The shooting of Endhiran (also referred to as Enthiran or The Robot) has been progressing in undisclosed areas in and around Chennai. We know you will say, “Alright! What is so new about it? And in some time they will be shooting in Vellore or Ennore amidst tight security!” Relax! This is truly different!

Since Rajinikanth is shooting in Chennai, he gets to eat homemade food prepared by his wife Latha. Every day, Rajni’s aide delivers huge portions of piping hot and tasty food. You should be wondering why a frugal Rajinikanth needs huge portions! Well, that is because Rajni shares his lunch with Aishwarya Rai, Shankar, and a few other unit members! Reportedly, an inquisitive Aishwarya, who loves eating South Indian food, keeps asking Rajni’s aide about how each dish is prepared and the right way of pronouncing its name!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s dates have become a big issue. She and her husband Abhishek Bachchan had canceled their shooting for Mani Ratnam’s film ‘Raavan’ owing to the illness of megastar Amitabh Bachchan on his birthday, last month.

The shooting of the film had to be completely rescheduled.

But the juggling act of the busy actress is now making things a little difficult for director Shankar.  This in spite of Ash working with him in one of her earlier films ‘Jeans’ years ago.

Sources say, “Endhiran, which stars Ash opposite Rajinikanth, has been forced to call off a shoot as Ash was busy shooting for Mani along with her hubby. S Shankar had scheduled a shooting stint at Kulu Manali, which was to start on November 14. He wanted to shoot a few sequences with his leading stars in this valley but had to change his plans. While southern superstar, Rajini, was available, Ash was still holed up in Kochi shooting for Mani’s film.”

Aishwarya Rai, who is working with Rajinikanth for ‘Robot’ can’t stop gushing about the actor.

‘It was great working with Rajinikanth, who is a brilliant actor. The only tough thing about the movie was studying Tamil again in order to pronounce the words properly,’ she said.

‘Robot’ directed by Shankar brings together Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai for the first time. A couple of song sequences were shot recently in Peru.

Says Aishwarya,” Shankar had approached me previously to work with him, but could not be materialized. Finally, everything landed in place and here we are together after ten years.”

Other than this, the actress will soon start acting for Mani Ratnam’s ‘Ravana’ with her husband Abhishek Bachchan.

“I don’t want to reveal much about it but in another 10 days, we will start shooting for the movie. I am looking forward to working again with Mani,” she added in an interview to a news agency.

Southern superstar Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer Endhiran, which was previously titled Robot, has roped in acclaimed Chinese stunt coordinator Woo-ping Yuen to supervise the action stunts of the film.

Sixty-three-year-old Yuen, also an actor and director, has been instrumental in creating some of the most memorable action stunts in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that had Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, Uma Thurman’s Kill Bill films, The Matrix series starring Keanu Reeves and The Forbidden Kingdom, which had Jet Li and Jackie Chan in it.

“Endhiran will have very slick action sequences and Shankar wanted to have someone who is very big to create some never seen before stunts. Yuen is a master of stunts,” according to a source..

Shahrukh Khan had primarily planned to produce and act in Shankar’s Robot. But this preparation did not take off and the tender finally landed on superstar Rajinikanth. With the film being made in Tamil, the director decided to opt for a name change to get the tax sops announced by the Tamil Nadu government for films with Tamil names. It is now believed that Robot will be renamed as Yenthram

Aishwarya Rai is very much a part of Shankar’s Rajinikanth dream project Robot, being produced by Ayngaran International.

Sources close to the deal said that last week the actress finally signed on the dotted line.

She was reportedly paid a whopping advance amount for the film.

Aishwarya is rumoured to be getting Rs 6 Crore to be the heroine of Robot. This is said to be the highest ever salary paid to an actress for an Indian film.

She has agreed to give bulk dates for the film as and when required.

As per original plans, Shankar was supposed to start the film in the first week of June. Due to various hitches, the shooting of the film will start now only in the last week of August after a low key ‘pooja’ in Chennai.