Deepika Padukone to promote Kochadaiiyaan without Rajnikanth

Rajnikanth won’t be promoting his latest film Kochadaiiyaan which finally opens on 11 April (2014). According to a source close to the mega-star, “Rajni Sir doesn’t wish to be seen too often in the public. He plays a medieval super-hero in Kochadaiiyaan and wants the image of invincible superstar to remain foremost in the public eye.” That leaves the entire promotion and marketing of this ambitious film to Rajnikanth’s co-star Deepika Padukone who is currently going through the busiest phase of her career and can ill-afford to fly off to various parts of the world to represent a star as big as Rajikanth. “But this is very important. And Deepika knows it,” says a source close to the epic project. “Rajni Sir won’t be promoting Kochadaiiyaan beyond the intial formalities. Deepika has the greatest regard for Rajni Sir and has readily agreed to travel with the film for promotion.” The busy actress will take a large chunk of time off to do the needful. Says the film’s co-producer Dr Murli Manohar, “Throughout the making of this film, Deepika has been immensely co-operative. Rajni Sir would probably be present at the media meet to introduce our film to journalists. Since Kochadaiiyaan involves 3D Motion Capture, a new technique of storytelling, we will probably be showing some footage of our film to media persons in Rajniji’s presence, like James Cameron had shown Avatar before release. But after that Deepika will be there to take the film forward to its release.” Apparently the exceptionally busy actress is trying to figure out how best to slice out time for promoting a film on behalf of herself and her formidable co-star. Price of superstardom? Her own and her co-star’s.