Rani’s ‘Aiyyaa’ character fan of Sridevi, Madhuri, Juhi

Rani Mukerji’s character in “Aiyyaa” takes inspiration from not one, or two but three actresses – Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla.

“My character is a huge fan of Sridevi, Juhi and Madhuri. She dreams about them and goes into a fantasy world all the time,” Rani said at the first look of her film held here Thursday.

She came dressed as her character, Meenakshi Deshmukh, in an elegant yellow and green traditional Maharashtrian nauvari sari.

Rani revealed that her character is not “normal at all”. “She is completely mad and very filmy woman.”

Co-produced by Anurag Kashyap and Viacom 18 and directed by Sachin Kundalkar, “Aiyyaa” also stars southern actor Prithviraj and is due to release Oct 12.

Rani said she took a lot of help from her director to get the right Marathi look and feel.

“Sachin wanted a typical Marathi flavour right from costumes to dialect and pronunciation. You will see a lot of Marathi and south Indian flavour in the film.”

After critical acclaim for her intense and bold portrayal of a journalist in “No On Killed Jessica”, Rani said she was looking for a light-hearted film and that is when “Aiyyaa” came to her.

“When Anurag came to me, I told him I don’t want to do dark films. I told Anurag I want to do happy films and he told me he is offering me one,” she said.

“I wanted to do something different with him since I have known him for long. I know his quirky side. Since I had done dark films like ‘No One Killed Jessica’ and will be doing ‘Talaash’, I wanted to do something light,” she added.