Cinema Scope

Aishwarya Rai has three very different films coming up this year, but director Vipul Shah says his film Action Replay will bring to the audiences her first full-fledged comedy.

"Of course comedy, which is the hardest genre to do, is not taken seriously at the awards. But in my film, Aishwarya has done comedy for the first time. She may have attempted it here and there earlier. But this is her first full-fledged comedy role. But she's welcome to get the awards for her other two releases...I don't mind," Shah told IANS.

Mani Ratnam's Raavan and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Guzaarish are the other two films she will be doing this year.While Bhansali's Guzaarish is set to release in November, Raavan and Action Replay, which also stars Akshay Kumar, are due to hit the theatres in quick succession within a month.

While Raavan is slated for a June 18 release, Shah is all set to release his film in July, arguing that the two films are completely different in mood, theme and treatment.

But the filmmaker had a bitter experience last year when his Salman Khan-starrer London Dreams released a month after the actor's home production Main Aur Mrs.Khanna.

Now apparently Shah plans to sit down with Mani Ratnam and figure out a release strategy whereby neither film suffers.He said: Raavan and Action Replay are very different films. And I thought I'd release (mine) in July. But I think I'll now discuss it with Aishwarya and Mani Ratnam. We need to work as one big family in this industry.

"Besides, I still have a song to shoot whereas Raavan is complete. I've yet to figure out when I can shoot it because both Aishwarya and Akshay are constantly travelling. We were supposed to shoot it earlier this year in the snow in Manali. Now we may go higher up at the Rohtang Pass or change the location for the song completely," the director added.