Priyanka Chopra Returns to Indian Cinema with SS Rajamouli's Epic Fantasy 'Varanasi'

Priyanka Chopra will be next seen in Karl E Urban’s Hollywood action thriller The Bluff on Prime Video this month, but next year will mark her long-awaited return to the big screen. She’ll play the female lead, Mandakini, in SS Rajamouli’s Telugu action fantasy epic Varanasi. While this marks the first time the actor and the filmmaker are working together, he recently confessed having a “little doubt” about casting her in this complex role. “It’s been a while since she did an Indian film. I think the last one she did was eight years ago. She did a lot of Hollywood productions in between. I had a little doubt whether she’s changed her approach according to the Western audience and if she’ll be ready to move back to her Indian base, but on the first day on set, she was a fish into water,” Rajamouli revealed. The last Indian film Priyanka headlined was Shonali Bose’s 2019 Bollywood family drama The Sky Is Pink. “I’ve been a fan of her since a long time. I love the way she performs, whether it’s a badass character or a vulnerable character. She really gives it all. So, when we started the character of Mandakini, she could kick ass but there are portions which are really vulnerable,” added Rajamouli in an interview with Screen Rant. He kept looking for an actor who can do both “with ease”, but could find actors doing either this or that. “It was a compromise to find an actor to do both. That’s when we thought of PC and approached her,” said Rajamouli. Priyanka, who has done critically acclaimed “vulnerable” performances like Barfi! (2012) and Bajirao Mastani (2015), has also headlined international action dramas like Quantico and Heads of State last year. Rajamouli had yet another conundrum going into Varanasi — the low number of IMAX screens in India. “Once we started designing the worlds of Varanasi, we realized we need a bigger format to capture their magnificence. Obviously, IMAX is the first thing came to our mind. It’s essentially the largeness of the worlds which made us push towards the largeness of the screen,” said Rajamouli. As of 2026, the count of IMAX screens in India is only 35, as compared to over 400 in the US. “I thought when I release the first glimpse, the audience should see it on a big screen. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough big screens in India. We had this audacious thought that if you don’t have one, let’s build one. We literally built that 100 x 130-feet screen,” added the filmmaker. Rajamouli and his team built a huge screen from scratch for the grand teaser unveil of Varanasi , which took place at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad last November. However, building those many screens from scratch won’t be a practical idea to showcase the film once it releases in cinemas on April 7, 2027 . The go-getter in Rajamouli has a plan ready. “So, I’m going to pitch tents outside their LA office and demand that we need more big screens in India,” said the filmmaker, who claimed that he and his team would do a dharna outside the Los Angeles head office of IMAX if there aren’t enough of their screens in India by early next year. Varanasi also stars Mahesh Babu as the protagonist and Prithviraj Sukumaran as the antagonist. Also Read — Border 2 Box Office Collection Day 12 Updates: Sunny Deol film earns Rs 285 cr, lags behind Dhurandhar What wasn’t a challenge for Rajamouli, however, was to hop from one world to another in Varanasi across time, also given the fact that one of those worlds is inspired from the Indian epic, the Ramayana. “I don’t think these stories are yesteryear. They’re blood flowing in our veins. These stories may have happened thousands of years ago. They’re constantly within us right from our childhood throughout our lives. So, it’s not difficult for to blend the emotions. The difficulty is whether I can live up to the expectations the audience have when we deal with these epics,” he reasoned.