‘I was star struck on the last day of Darbar shoot’

Meanwhile, I listened to quite a lot of Tamil scripts but I didn’t take it up as they weren’t convincing enough for me to sign,” she says. According to Nivetha, Darbar isn’t her comeback film. She says, “I wouldn’t call it or feel like it’s a comeback because having lived in Chennai. I didn’t feel disconnected from the industry because people here have also started watching Telugu films and whenever a film of mine in Telugu is released, the audience here recognise me by that role.” She goes into a fan girl mode as she begins talking about sharing screen space with Rajinikanth. “I shot for the film for 45 days with him. The entire film was shot in Mumbai. Only when we shot for a patchwork in Chennai after the audio launch, I realised that I am working with one of India’s biggest stars and was starstruck before I asked him for a picture and an autograph. Though I play his daughter and the story takes off from my character, it will still be a Rajini film and we all are catalysts who take it forward,” she reveals.

Nivetha says that Santhosh Sivan’s visuals will be one of the high points of Darbar. “There is a specific scene in which Rajini sir and I will be walking in Marine Drive. There were no bouncers and Rajini sir just walked out of his caravan. Santosh Sivan set the camera and asked us to walk along with the crowd. When I saw the monitor, the way it had come out was mindblowing. I just gave Santosh a tight hug when I saw the rush.” On a concluding note, she says, “I will be taking up more projects in Tamil starting from this year and will make announcements soon.”

Superstar Rajinikanth’s Darbar will open to the audience on Thursday as early as 2:30 am in the city. Rajinikanth will reportedly be watching this show with his fans at a city theatre. Apart from this, the film will have shows from four in the morning across Tamil Nadu. Superstar’s fans from Japan have flown in to the city to witness the spectacle at Rajinikanth’s favourite Albert Theatre and have also planned to perform the traditional milk abishekam. Darbar is set to release in over 5,000 screens worldwide on Thursday.