Prabhu Deva's frantic search for a leading lady

While Rowdy Rathore continues its success romp at the box office, its director Prabhu Deva has no time to revel in the ecstasy of the success. In fact, Prabhu is currently the most stressed filmmaker in the country, and not because he has three back-to-back Hindi projects starring newcomer Girish Taurani, Shahid Kapoor and Ajay Devgn lined up for direction but because Prabhu is searching for a suitable match, not for himself but his next hero newcomer Girish Taurani, producer Kumar Taurani’s son. Kumar Taurani who has quite a clout in the film industry wanted to cast an established heroine with his son so that Prabhu Deva could focus on directing the newcomer and not worry too much about what the leading lady is doing in front of the camera. There is a major hitch, though. Girish is all of 22, but looks much younger. Every heroine who has been approached to star opposite the Taurani scion didn’t quite fit. Katrina Kaif, Genelia d’Souza and Parineeti Chopra were sounded out and rejected because , well, they didn’t fit the bill. So it looks like young Girish would have to make do with a newcomer. “What to do?” laments Prabhu Deva. “Girish is 22. But he looks 19. None of the established heroines looks compatible with him. So we had to drop the original plan of a big heroine with the newcomer to create a balanced box office equation.”