Arvind Swamy is being appreciated for his earnest performance as DRS, the cool-headed Ministry of External Affairs secretary in the recent Netflix web series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack. One of the most famous films headlined by Arvind was the 1995 Tamil romantic drama Bombay with Manisha Koirala.
But, Arvind Swamy wasn't Mani Ratnam's first choice for the film. The director had first offered the film to Vikram, fondly called as Chiyaan Vikram by his fans. Vikram himself revealed in an interview how he goofed up the audition and cried for two months after losing the chance to work with Mani Ratnam in Bombay.
Talking to the popular YouTuber Siddharth Kannan, the Cobra actor dismissed the rumours that he rejected Bombay and added, "I didn’t refuse Bombay, I goofed up the audition because he suddenly asked me to audition and he didn’t get a video camera, he got a still camera and he said act. He told me, ‘Look at that girl she is running and I would freeze.’ He said, ‘Don’t stop continue’ but I was confused, ‘He has got a camera, it’s not a video camera so why do I act?’ I understood at that point that if I move he will get a blur image."
Sharing how he "screwed it up", Vikram added, "It was a dream for me to work with Mani sir. I was ready to retire after the film; I didn’t need anything after that. I was confirmed for the film. Morning was Manisha Koirala’s photoshoot and evening was mine but I screwed it up. For two months, every day, I would wake up and cry, ‘Shit I lost it.’ A grown man crying for two months. That film went on become a pan-India and a cult film."
Vikram went on to work with Mani Ratnam in the 2010 bilingual drama Raavan and Raavanan. He also collaborated with the director for the pan-India historical action drama films Ponniyin Selvan 1 and Ponniyin Selvan 2. Released in 2022 and 2023, both the films became blockbusters and collectively earned over Rs 800 crore at the global box office.
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