The director of the film [Vikram] wanted to do a film with me for almost nine years. He has been after me since Alaipayuthey. Only thing is earlier on he wanted to make these commercial films that were acceptable in Tamil. But I always felt he had a lot more potential than what he was crediting himself with. I guess that is what the Tamil producers wanted to see out of me -- a comic caper or a loose love story, which would make quick money.

I didn't want to do a film with Vikram dictated by how much the budget of the film would be like. So I kept torturing him for a while to bring me a good script that was worthy of him. After the entire wait, he finally came up with this script. He is one guy who had complete and direct access to me. The script blew my mind as this was exactly what I was waiting for. He wasn't ready with the second half but wanted to go on the floors because he had spoken to a Telugu producer. I spoke to the Telugu producer and bought the film from them.

I came to Mumbai during the music release of Guru and met Manmohan Shetty. He was pulling my leg because I was doing only one Hindi film a year and wanted to see more of me in Hindi. I told him that I had a script in hand but didn't know who to approach. He immediately wanted to hear the script and so I sent Vikram to him the very next day. He was thrilled by the script and didn't bother about the budget. I was expecting X amount of budget and he gave me three times more.

I then spoke to P C Sreeram, my first and most favourite cameraman. My first and last film with him was Alaipayuthey and he wanted to do a film with me. I didn't want to go to A R Rahman or P C Sreeram, unless I had a story worthy of them.

He heard the script and came on board. Similarly, Sameer Chanda and Rahman too came on board after hearing the script. Unfortunately, Rahman couldn't go ahead with the music because of prior commitments. But we got Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and they have done a wonderful job.

After waiting for eight years, suddenly the film was ready in three months. It took us only three months to shoot the Tamil as well as the Hindi version of the film. We titled it 13 B ill Yaavaram Nalam. This is the first time I have a done a film in two different languages, two different films with two different casts, and I am very excited. I am very keen to see how the audience will take it.

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