Sudhir Mishra over Kamal Hassan for Chitrangada

Mumbai: To accommodate the dates for her mentor Sudhir Mishra's new film, the actress says no to the South star.

To accommodate the dates for her mentor Sudhir Mishra's new film, Chitrangada Singh has actually said no to Kamal Hassan, who was looking to cast her in his next.

Contrary to reports that Mishra is upset with the actress for stepping into mainstream films, buzz is that the filmmaker encouraged Chitrangada to accept Hassan's offer.

Apparently Haasan who is directing his Hindi-Tamil bi-lingual 'Vishwaroopam' round-the-clock, contacted Chitrangda for a very special role. As the dates clashed with Mishra's untitled film (that also stars Arjun Rampal) the actress begged off.

Says a source, "Kamalji needed immediate dates for Vishwaroopam. Chitrangda loved her role. But the dates were clashing with Mishra's film which he has been shooting on a war footing to make the New Year deadline.

However, when he heard about the offer he urged Chitrangda to take it up. He was willing to adjust his schedule so that she didn't miss out on the chance of working with Kamal Haasan."

Speaking about her decision to go with Mishra's film, Chitrangda says, "It's true I was offered Hassan's film. And believe me, it was a dream come true. It took all my willpower to decline the offer. It clashed with Sudhir's (Mishra) film. So I had to say no."

Also, trashing reports that her mentor was miffed with her efforts to embrace mainstream cinema, Chitrangda retorts, "It's really funny because Sudhir himself is doing just that. He is trying to bring the language of his cinema closer to the mainstream language.

We succeeded to a large extent in bridging that gap with 'Yeh Saali Zindagi', which is his most commercially successful film. It wasn't 'Desi Boyz' in terms of budget, prints and reach. Now we're doing the untitled film with Arjun Rampal which is even more mainstream, and then Mehrunissa which is Sudhir's biggest film to date."

The actress further adds, "He is constantly advising me to try all kinds of cinema. He was really disappointed when I had to say no to Kamal Hassan."