Bollywood film Mission Mangal deals with the story of Mangalyan, India’s first Mars Orbiter Mission. The film, starring Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan and Sonakshi Sinha, also has Malayali actress Nithya Menen making her Hindi film debut.

However, the film’s director Jagan Shakti made it clear that he also wanted one more Malayalam actress to star in his film. He said that he wanted Manju Warrier to play an important character in the film. “I wanted the country’s best artists to work in my film. I initially planned to rope in Manju Warrier from Malayalam, Suhasini from Tamil, Anu Prabhakar from Kannada, a Bengali actress and a Hindi actress. When I started scripting the film I also had Sreedevi in my mind,” the director said.

However, the director added that he decided to opt for Hindi artists once when Akshay Kumar was finalised for the lead role. The film, which will be releasing on August 15, has the main actors playing ISRO scientists.