Probably the only film which has of late seen numerous heroines donning the lead is 'Bulbul', only to be out of it. The hunt seems to be finally over with the makers roping in a new face, Bindya Ram, a small screen star of the serial, 'Arasi'. The home production of Darshan, who also plays the lead in 'Bulbul' had seen Ramya, Anushka Shetty, Tammanah, Trisha, Kajal Aggarwal being approached for the leading lady role. But all of them rejected the offer either because of remuneration or date problems.
“We also had our very own Ramya, who was selected but she dropped out of the project because she was not happy with the money. When I and Toogudeepa Productions thought of producing the film, we wanted a Kannada girl to play the lead. When I started hunting for a female lead for 'Bulbul', my first choice was Anushka Shetty who is from Karnataka and doing well in other languages too. But we could not bring her down for this film,” says Dinakar, who decided on the serial actress Bindiya.
“I have a friend Harish Rayappa, who is also into films and serials. We were just discussing about the project and when the topic about the heroine came up, he mentioned about Bindya and sent me her picture. The same evening I discussed with my other partners and we called her for a one on one talk. She was the unanimous choice,” said Dinakar.
Bindya’s plus point is that she is a trained classical dancer. "Being a dancer, she was very expressive during the screen test. We immediately did a photo session and finally the tedious work is over now. We are planning to change her on-screen name which we are yet to discuss about,” he says. On the other side, the pre-production is going on in full swing with the team just returning from Bangkok after completing the location hunt as 'Bulbul' will go on floors very soon. “We finalised the original locations where 'Darling' (original Telugu film) was shot. We are also looking for a set up at Kanteerva Studio. There are huge expectations surrounding the film already. I along with my director MD Sridhar, and cameraman Krishna are on the job,”says Dinakar.