Guess who is Ramu’s new muse? After Urmila Matondkar, Antara Mali and Nisha Kothari, Aishwarya Rai impresses Ram Gopal Varma.

The director, who had once quoted, “I don’t like cute women”, has been singing Ash’s praises for quite some time now. We were surprised nevertheless and didn’t leave an opportunity to ask Ramu as to what brought in a welcome change in his outlook towards the queen of commercial cinema.

“When I first approached Aishwarya, I never thought of her as a good actress. Her beauty always came to the forefront, making it impossible for me to focus on her acting skills or other aspects. But she surprised me. There was one particular scene in Sarkar Raj with Amitabh Bachchan and she had to give retakes nine times because of some technical mistakes and every time she faced the camera, she behaved as though she was doing it for the first time. I have become a big fan of her’s ever since,” he said.

Keeping with Ramu’s tradition of working with a particular actress once he likes their work, we wonder what Ramu has in store for Ash next.