Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to star in Indo-American film The Letter based on Rabindranath Tagore’s Three Women

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan will be returning to the big screen after four long years with Mani Ratnam's magnum opus, Ponniyin Selvan 1 and 2. The actor plays a dual role in the period drama as Nandini and Mandakini Devi. Now that Aishwarya has wrapped the shoot of Ponniyin Selvan, the actor is all set to kickstart a new project. Yes, the actor will be seen in an English film titled The Letter, which is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s book Three Women.

The forthcoming Indo-American project marks the film directorial debut of Isheeta Ganguly, who is a fusion singer and a theatre writer-director. Sharing her excitement, she told News18 that the film's main protagonist will be played by Aishwarya. While the play was called Three Women, Ganguly changed the name and titled the film The Letter because it is based on a letter written by Tagore's sister-in-law, Kadambari Devi. 

The director is overjoyed that Aishwarya liked the script and agreed to be a part of her directorial debut.

Regarding the same, she shared that while the musical theatre that she directed was based on the development of two protagonists from Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's novellas — Bimala and Charufrom. She revealed that their lives are seen through the eyes of Kadambari Devi, and for the film, she adapted the story to a modern setting and turned it into a mother-daughter story.

Talking about making it an English-language film, Ganguly shared that before the pandemic, Aishwarya and she were talking about it. Originally, she intended to make it as a Hindi film. But when Aishwarya read the script, she thought it would work well in English because of the story's urban American sensibilities. Thus, Ganguly decided to make it into an Indo-American film because of Aishwarya's conviction.

While updating the shoot schedule, Ganguly revealed that they are currently working on casting, location, and script details, and they hope to begin filming in New York in July 2022.