Aishwarya Lekshmi: The first look test for Ponniyin Selvan was held on me

The team of Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan: I is aggressively promoting the magnum opus across the country. The team comprising Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Trisha and Aishwarya Lekshmi was in Bengaluru yesterday for the promotions. In the meantime, the makers also released a special promo of Aishwarya Lekshmi and Trisha talking about their experience working in the film. Aishwarya plays the boatwoman Poonguzhali, wife of Senthan Amuthan, who later goes on to become Uttama Chola.

Talking about how she got on board, Aishwarya is seen saying in the film, "Around mid-2019, I got a call from Madras Talkies asking me to come and meet Mani Ratnam sir. And obviously the reports were all over the paper because everyone was expecting Mani sir to make Ponniyin Selvan next. After one and a half years of pre-production, I was the first person on whom they tried the looks of the character."

She added, "For Poonguzhali's look test, I could see that Eka had a lot of photographs and a lot of references. We were trying to see what looks better for the character in our time. A lot of research had to be undergone for the same. Every scene was tough. After all, it is Mani sir, we are talking about. The first shot of the film was canned on me.

On her character, Poonguzhali, Aishwarya said, " Poonguzhali was the woman I wanted to be like and everyone was in awe of her. She was smart and strong, even when it comes to the physical part of it. She could row across oceans and she could do that in two nights or three nights.It didn't matter to her."

Aishwarya said that it was fun working with the team. "They were fun to work with. Karthi sir used to hold me back from asking Mani sir too many questions. He used to be an Assistant Director. So he knows Mani sir's mood. So he'll be like, "Don't go"...He did that all the time." She added, "I think we can all expect a very rooted story in our Tamil culture to come to life with Ponniyin Selvan."