Kamal Haasan reveals the reason why he took a year to sign Kalki 2898 AD: ‘Self-doubt comes…’

Nag Ashwin's Kalki 2898 AD is one of the most anticipated films of the year. Kamal Haasan plays Yaskin in the sci-fi magnum opus, which also stars Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, and Disha Patani. In a recent interview during the pre-release event in Mumbai, Kamal was asked about the long casting process and why he took so much time to say yes to the project. (Also read: Kalki 2898 AD advance booking day 1: Amitabh Bachchan, Prabhas film earns over ₹8.2 cr, sells more than 2.8 lakh tickets)

What Kamal said

In the interview, when the topic of Kamal Haasan's casting was pointed out, Prabhas added, “I was like why will he do it? Don’t torture him. Just leave.” In response, Kamal Haasan finally replied, “It’s not a question of torture. Self-doubt comes, you know. He has done this (Pointing towards Amitabh and Prabhas). What am I going to do? That was the reason. And it’s not that I’ve played bad guys before. Even as a lead bad guy, psychopaths and all that. But this is something else.” The clip of the interview surfaced on X.

More details

Kalki 2898 AD is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features Amitabh Bachchan as the immortal Ashwatthama and Prabhas as Bhairava, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. At the pre-release event last week, Kamal had told reporters, "This get-up took a long time. We travelled to Los Angeles. We failed a couple of times, before arriving on the first acceptable look for the director. I think and hope the audience will react the same way we did when we saw the look."

The film became the first-ever Indian film to debut at the San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) 2023. A trailer was unveiled a few days ago, which gave audiences a peek into the post-apocalyptic film is inspired by Hindu scriptures and set in the year 2898 AD. The film is all set to release in theatres on June 27. Telangana government has already approved extra shows and hiked ticket prices for the first 8 days of release in the state.