Adipurush director reveals characters played by Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, Saif Ali Khan

Adipurush director Om Raut has revealed that the characters in his upcoming movie will not borrow the names from the epic Ramayana. The director, in an interview with Variety, said that Adipurush is a retelling of Ramayana using modern storytelling methods, and the actors — Prabhas, Kriti Sanon, and Saif Ali Khan — will not borrow the name of the lead characters in Valmiki's Ramayana. 

Instead, Prabhas will play the role of Raghav, Kriti will play the role of Janaki and Saif will play Lankesh in the film. Speaking about this retelling of Ramayana, Om said that the reason he has named Prabhas' character Raghav is to ensure that the character is approachable and more human in audiences' eyes. Om believes that using the name Ram would put the character on a pedestal. 

Speaking of how he has been inspired by Japanese filmmaker Yugo Sako's anime The Prince of Light, Om said, "I was mesmerized. This is the way this story has to be told, very condensed… precise, yet you feel for the characters, you are rooting for Prabhu [Lord] Ram — and at the same time the presentation was so modern and so fresh and very children friendly." He added, "The teachings and everything were said very simply as opposed to making it a little heavy and mundane and boring and monotonous."

He further explained, "I said that if these foreigners can come and make our epic into such an interesting piece, what are we doing? We should do something like this and I need to tell the Ramayana in my own way.”

Adipurush is a bilingual — set to be released in Hindi and Telugu — and will be dubbed in Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada. The film is expected to be released in the latter part of 2022.