Manisha Koirala says film with Rajnikanth ended her career in the South

Manisha Koirala recently opened up about the real reason which essentially put a halt to her growing career in the South film industries. Koirala believes it was the box office failure of her Tamil film, Baba, in which she starred opposite Rajnikanth. She also reflected on how the film did good numbers on its re-release last year.

Manisha on her film career in the South

Manisha has quite a few commercially successful as well as critically acclaimed films to her name from the Tamil film industry. While 1996 release Bombay dealt with themes of Communalism tied in with inter-faith love, Indian and Mudhalvan which released in 1996 an 1999 respectively, dealt with corruption and changing the system. Her 2002 release, Baba, however, halted her career in the Tamil film industry.

In an interview with a YouTube channel O2, the actor cited the reason as being the film not being able to live up to the sky-high expectations the audience had from a Rajnikanth-starrer at the time. Koirala details how she had many offers on the table before Baba's release. After the film failed to perform, the offers too stopped pouring in. She said, "My career in South got completely finished after Baba". 

On Baba's re-release

The actress also happily relayed how the film managed good numbers when it was re-released in the theatres last year, on the occasion of Rajnikath's birthday. She also reflected on how 'strange' this change of fate for the film was, 20 years later. She said, "Rajni sir can never give a flop". 

Baba, directed by Suresh Krissna, released in 2002. It showed the story of a young atheist played by Rajnikanth, who realises that he is the reincarnation of a saint and is bestowed with divine powers. Koirala was last seen in Kartik Aaryan starrer Shehzada, which released earlier this year. She will be seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's show, Heeramandi, later this year.