Director Radhakrishnan Parthiban shares screen space with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in Mani Ratnam’s historical drama, Ponniyin Selvan. As the brother-in-law of one of Rai’s dual characters (Nandini), Parthiban plays the role of one who always warns his brother about his wife’s misdeeds. “I cannot express my joy. I worked with Aishwarya, and interacted with Amitabh sir,” he says, having connected with Bachchan at a curtain-raiser of the filmmaker’s Tamil movie, Iravin Nizhal (Shadow of the Night) in September.

While his character may not be fond of that of Rai, off screen Parthiban developed a liking for her. “She’s beautiful, physically, but never takes her acting [skills] for granted. She doesn’t even waste a single minute on the sets — wears her makeup, mugs her dialogues, rehearses her facial expressions, and delivers them. She does not take retakes. Even though she [knows] she is beautiful, she believes it is not a big deal.”