Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was offered a key role in 2004's Troy: Here's why she turned it down

If you remember well, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, for a brief stretch in the 2000s, had appeared in several English films, with The Mistress of Spices being the first, and was later followed up with Bride & Prejudice, Provoked, The Last Legion and The Pink Panther 2. But not many knows that Aishwarya was also offered to star in the 2004 Brad-Pitt-starrer historical epic, Troy.

Aishwarya Rai was offered a role in Brad Pitt’s Troy?

According to media reports, Aishwarya was supposed to play Briseis, which was eventually played by Rose Byrne, but turned the part down because she was not comfortable in shooting certain scenes.

The movie reimagines Briseis as a Trojan priestess and a relative of Hector and Paris. Captured by Achilles during the war, Briseis becomes a key emotional figure in the story as the film develops a romantic relationship between them, which differs significantly from Homer's Iliad.

Troy went on to become a major box office success, and made close to $500 million worldwide. The film was also nominated for one Academy Award.

Brad Pitt, in 2012, while promoting his film Killing Them Softly, regretted that he couldn’t get a chance to work with Aishwarya. He told IANS, “Given a chance, I would like to work with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, because she’s a versatile actor. She is one of the most popular actresses of Bollywood, who has achieved huge acclaim in the west for her style, beauty and acting. I think we missed an opportunity to be cast together for Troy.”

Other major Hollywood films that Aishwarya Roy Bachchan turned down

However, Troy wasn’t the only big-ticket Hollywood project, starring a major actor, which Aishwarya turned down. The actor was also in talks for Will Smith projects like Hitch, Seven Pounds and Tonight He Comes. In a 2008 interview to IANS, she said that she did not turn down the film because she wanted to celebrate Karwa Chauth back home, what the media reports had said. “That’s what they wrote in the US press... that I preferred to return to Mumbai to ‘starve’ myself for a religious occasion than to meet Smith for the film. That’s completely incorrect,” she had said.

“The script reading for The Seven Pounds was just after Diwali when Dadimaa (Teji Bachchan)’s health dipped drastically. So I didn’t make that trip out to LA for the reading session with Will. Is that wrong? Not to me. I’d any day put family over career.”

She also shared her justifiction about turning down Tonight He Comes. She had said, “I had to say no to Will for Tonight He Comes. I feel awful about it, but I’ve my priorities very straight. Yes, family always comes first.”

Like Pitt, Will Smith in an interview was also regretful that they couldn't share sceens togetther. “I really wanted to work with her... She has this powerful energy where she doesn’t have to say anything, do anything, she can just stand there. Anything she’s making, I’ll be there.”

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