Actor Rakul Preet Singh who plays Surpanakaha in Nitesh Tiwari’s upcoming epic Ramayana recently spoke about playing the “misunderstood and layered” character.

In a conversation with PTI, Rakul spoke about what drew her to the project and why she was excited to be part of the epic adaptation. 

“I think what was so exciting were a couple of things. First, it's India's representation to the world. Our history, our truth represented to the world's first ever-global film,” she said. “Secondly, Surpanakha is a very misunderstood and layered character. She was the reason why the war took place in the first place. So, it has been really interesting to play someone with multiple shades.”

Surpanakha is an important character in the mythological epic Ramayana. She is the demon king Ravana’s sister who approaches Rama and Lakshmana when they are in exile in the forest. After being rejected by them and her nose and ears cut off by Lakshmana, she vows revenge which ultimately leads to Ravana kidnapping Sita and the fight between Rama and him.

Ramayana will release worldwide on November 5. The advance booking for the film, which began a few days ago, have witnessed strong bookings all over the country.  According to Sacnilk, Ramayana: Part 1 has earned Rs 14.06 crore so far in advance bookings, with more than 2.6 lakh tickets being sold from 6,126 shows in 80 cities. Without block seats, the film's advance booking collection stands at Rs 11.34 crore.

Apart from Rakul, the film also stars Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Ravie Dubey as Lakshmana, Yash as Ravana, and Sunny Deol as Hanuman.