Ranbir's new girl, Ileana D'Cruz

It has been revealed that the original actress considered for the role was southern starlet, Asin. But as often happens, Asin demanded too high a fee which left Anurag looking for other options. The search next lead him to Deepika Padukone but obviously the tall beauty had problems with the main lead!

Anurag, who stumbled upon this choice courtesy Illeana's photographs, showed Ranbir the pictures of the actress as well and ,the young Kapoor it is heard, gave a green immediately. Apparently, he actually approved of her believing her to have the same grace as ex-girlfriend, Deepika. 

A few days later, Anurag met with Illeana and her mother to finalize the deal after informing them that the other female character was being portrayed by Priyanka Chopra.

With Ranbir set to play a mute character, and Priyanka a women who often succumbs to fits of incoherence, it was essential for Illeana to speak fluent Hindi. Hence why Anurag has planned a set of strict voice and diction training for the actress before commencing shooting.