Aishwarya Rai was offered a pivotal role in Brad Pitt-starrer Troy but she turned it down because she had made promises in India.

Aishwarya Rai was a movie star in India when she started getting many international film offers. Hollywood was completely in awe of Aishwarya after her film Devdas was screened at Cannes Film Festival and she was starting to explore a career in the West. It was during this time that the actor was offered a significant part in Brad Pitt-starrer Troy. Aishwarya had a significant part in the film but it wasn’t the kind of role that needed 6-9 months, but that was the amount of time that was required from her by the producers.

In an earlier chat with SCREEN, Aishwarya recalled this incident and said that the makers expected her to block 6-9 months off from her calendar even though her part wasn’t as long. She shared that at the time she didn’t know that Hollywood functioned in this manner as they would often block out a larger chunk of time so they could insure their project and the actors associated with it. “They wanted me to lock off 6-9 months because it was a huge film,” she said.

The actor then added that her part wasn’t as big and she also had other commitments that she had to keep back home. “Obviously, we have a way of looking at things like this is your part, lock off that kind of time. Of course, you understand the impact of largesse of that piece of cinema but to lock off that kind of time when you have that kind of albeit very small films here which I was committed to, I couldn’t get myself to just kick that to the curb,” she said and added, “It’s exciting because there are huge offers. It’s difficult because you know you are walking away from possibly…”

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan said that at the time, many of her seniors would speak about the glass ceiling that could not be broken, but here she was, on the verge of breaking it. Aishwarya still managed to work in many international projects in the early 2000s