A day after ‘Kanchivaram’ bagged the National Award in the Best Feature Film category and Prakash Raj the Best Actor award, Priyadarshan, the captain of the ship, reveals a best-kept secret on the movie.

“My best friend Mohanlal was supposed to do the film. But he couldn’t as he had date problems. After that, I decided to cast Prakash Raj, whose fantastic performance and dialogue delivery did the magic,” says the filmmaker.

Priyan, who is currently busy making his forthcoming Hindi film with Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar and Bipasha Basu, says, “Prakash took ‘Kanchivaram’ to a different level. He was totally committed and did the film without any remuneration.”

Claiming that he predicted a National Award for the actor, Priyan says, “Immediately after watching the first copy, I told Prakash that he would get a National Award for it. Such was his performance.”