Boys (2003). When the post-production work of Boys was underway, Shankar was awaiting the return of its composer A. R. Rahman, who was then outside India, to complete the background score. In the meantime, Shankar had an idea for a storyline and called Vikram, who expressed enthusiasm for the subject. Development Following the release of Boys in August 2003, Shankar began work on his next directorial venture entitled Anniyan. It was initially thought to be Shankar's pet project Robot revived with a new title, but this was later proven not to be correct. Shankar said the film was his "dream project" and disclosed that it would be a racy, fantasy-thriller. When questioned on how the idea behind the film had come to him, the director revealed, "The seeds of all my movies were sown when I was young, long before I started making movies. So many things disturbed me, and these stayed with me. Those were the seeds. I make films based on them." With the highest production value among Tamil films of its time, the film was touted to be the director's magnum opus and was labelled "the most eagerly awaited film of the year" by the media. The film deals with a person having dissociative identity disorder, commonly known as "multiple personality disorder" (MPD) or "split personality syndrome". It was compared to Chandramukhi, released two months before, as it also focused on a character with the same syndrome. Casting To portray the lead character, Shankar needed a performer who could play an action hero. He chose Vikram as he felt that the actor, in addition to being a performer, had the image of an action hero. While his casting was made public in a November 2003 news report announcing the project's inception, the director revealed that Vikram was added to the cast in mid-2003 and refuted theories that the actor's casting was to capitalise on his new-found popularity following his success at the National Film Awards, where he won the National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film Pithamagan (2003). Stating that Vikram was selected for the lead role months before the theatrical release of Pithamagan, Shankar added, "I don't look at actors that way." He further remarked that Vikram was the "life and soul" of Anniyan. The heroine role of a "devoted Iyengar Brahmin girl" was originally offered to Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who