When director Sukumar chose Allu Arjun over Prabhas for his iconic film 'Arya'

When director Sukumar chose Allu Arjun over Prabhas for his iconic film ‘Arya’

Allu Arjun and director Sukumar’s iconic film, ‘Arya’, completed 20 years of release on May 7. At an event to celebrate the occasion, Sukumar and producer Dil Raju revealed that they narrated the script to Prabhas and Ravi Teja before they finalised Allu Arjun. ‘Arya’ is a huge milestone in Allu Arjun’s career, which ran for over 125 days and is now regarded as a cult classic in his filmography.Â

The entire cast and crew of ‘Arya’ got together to celebrate 20 years of Arya. The event, which took place in Hyderabad, brought back many nostalgic memories that took place during the shooting.Â

Producer Dil Raju, at the press conference, revealed that they approached Ravi Teja and Prabhas initially. He said, “Initially, we took Sukumar’s script to Ravi Teja and he liked it. Then, we went to Prabhas, but he was busy with two other films at that time. It was around the same time that we arranged a special screening of ‘Dil’ at Prasad Labs. There, we were talking about ‘Arya’. Interestingly, Allu Arjun arrived there, and I thought he would be the perfect choice for the film.”Â

Sukumar then revealed that he was skeptical about casting Prabhas in the film. “I took Dil Raju’s suggestion and narrated the story to Prabhas. But, I wasn’t sure if he would fit the role. Even Prabhas felt the same. But, when I saw Bunny [Allu Arjun] at the screening of ‘Dil’, I was in awe of his body language and persona. Before ‘Arya’, Bunny said he heard about 71 scripts, but wasn’t impressed with them. Then, I narrated ‘Arya’s’ first half to him, and he was so happy after the narration.Â

Dil Raju continued, “We met Allu Aravind garu and he suggested some changes. Sukumar was initially disappointed and wanted to return to his native. He said that he quit his lecturer job as he didn’t like narrating or talking about the same concept multiple times. He was actually disappointed that he was asked to give multiple narrations. Many people worked on ‘Arya’s’ script and without them, this film wouldn’t have been possible.”Â

Written and directed by Sukumar, ‘Arya’ is a romantic action comedy starring Allu Arjun in the lead role. Anu Mehta and Siva Balaji played crucial roles in the film.Â

The romantic comedy gave a huge break to Allu Arjun in his career and was also remade in Tamil as ‘Kutty’ with Dhanush and Shriya Saran.Â

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