Today marks 17 years since Aayutha Ezhuthu, Mani Ratnam's multistarrer political thriller made waves in Tamil cinema. So we at MovieCrow decided to bring in one more 'Did You Know' item for the day, in honour of the movie.

Aayutha Ezhuthu is a three-hero subject and while Suriya was the first choice for his character, Madhavan and Siddharth were brought in because the makers couldn't go with their original options. For Madhavan's character of a bulked up ruffian, actor Vikram was considered. However Vikram's packed schedule at that time prevented him from committing and lead to Madhavan loosing his 'chocolate-boy' image. 

The third role in the movie was a character named Arjun, which required a young actor with a city-bred look. Mani Ratnam is said to have called actor Srikanth to audition for this role and the actor almost had the role in his kitty. But Srikanth suffered an injury post his selection and he had to opt out.

Actors Shaam and then new-face Karthi were approached for the role but the former couldn't commit dates and the latter showed more interest in direction (Karthi ended up ADing Mani Ratnam on Aayutha Ezhuthu). The role finally went to Siddharth who had previously ADed Mani Ratnam and was making his acting debut with Boys. 

Another lesser known fact about Aaytha Ezhuthu is that Mani Ratnam intiially had no plans of including songs in the movie. In early 2000s it was big deal for a Tamil movie to release with no songs (and a considerable risk factor too). However the director decided against the same after listening to A.R. Rahman's compositions. 

Watch out for the next 'Did You Know' at 5:30 tomorrow. Catch all our previous items from this corner here, here and here.