Development The film began pre-production in April 2003 in a typical manner adapted by the director,
Mani Ratnam, who keeps his projects under wraps until completion. The director chose to make two different versions of the film as he did not want the film to be dubbed, explaining that the essence of the script would be lost if they had done so. The project was named
Aayutha Ezhuthu after the
last letter of the
Tamil script, which is denoted by three dots in a triangle and the director revealed that the film was about three individuals. However, Ratnam revealed that the film was closer to
Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese film
Rashomon as both films dealt with a cause-effect and a third-view called
Rashomon effect. Suriya stated that his character was based on a real person
George Reddy from
Andhra Pradesh and to prepare, he read a lot of books and collected a lot of information before the shoot.
R. Madhavan was signed on to appear in Ratnam's fourth successive project after playing the lead roles in his
Alai Payuthey (2000) and
Kannathil Muthamittal (2002) as well as his 2001 production,
Dumm Dumm Dumm. The actor bulked up and sported a shaven look for the first time in his career to resemble his character of a ruffian. For a third lead role, Mani Ratnam called
Srikanth and requested him to audition for the project in December 2002. The actor had scored back-to-back successes in his first two films,
Roja Kootam and
April Maadhathil, and was subsequently selected to be a part of the film. However, the actor soon after suffered an injury and was unable to commit to the dates Ratnam suggested.
Karthi, the brother of Suriya, was then offered the role but declined the offer to make his debut and worked as an assistant director on the film because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting.
Siddharth, who had previously apprenticed as an assistant director under Mani Ratnam in
Kannathil Muthamittal before his making his acting debut in
Shankar's
Boys, was subsequently signed on for the film. Prior to release, Siddharth felt he was cast as he "looked, talked and behaved like Arjun" and mentioned that the sync sound technique used worked in favour of him as he was an experienced theatre actor. Kannada actor
Sudeep was also initially slated to form a part of the cast after meeting Mani Ratnam for the script discussion, but was ultimately discarded from the film. Malayalam actress
Meera Jasmine was signed on to play a slum dweller in the film portraying Madhavan's wife and it was reported that she spent hours perfecting her Tamil for the film, trying to get rid of her native
Malayalam accent to adapt to the sound sync technique used.
Esha Deol, daughter of actress
Hema Malini, was then selected to play the role in the Tamil version of the film after
Suhasini enquired whether she could speak Tamil. After finishing her work in
Aaytha Ezhuthu, Deol was signed on for the Hindi version of the film too after Simran also opted out of that role and thus Deol became the only common leading actor between the versions. To prepare for her role, Deol worked on certain pronunciations of Iyer Tamil with Mani Ratnam's assistant
Kannan mentoring her progress. It was also reported that actress
Nadhiya had signed the film and would make a comeback to films after a ten-year sabbatical but did not eventually form a part of the final cast. The director initially opted against using songs in the film but wanted to create an album with
A. R. Rahman for the project. However, after the songs were recorded, Mani Ratnam had a change of heart and chose to include them. For the art direction in the film,
Sabu Cyril studied each character in-depth, giving them a distinct colour, mood, and background to suit their temperament. For Michael's house in the film, Cyril followed the arrangement in his own house and used some of his own photographs for decorations. He also expressed that he had great difficulty in re-creating the streets of
Kolkata for the Hindi version of the film in
Chennai. G. Ramesh was selected to be the hairdresser for the three lead actors in the film.
Filming The scene filmed at
Napier Bridge in
Chennai was canned in early December 2003, the same time during which Suriya changed his getup and started filming for his another 2004 release,
Perazhagan, but the schedule caused severe traffic and congestion in that area. Mani Ratnam began the Tamil version after
Vivek Oberoi suffered an injury during the making of
Yuva, giving him time to extract more out his actors in the Tamil version. The Tamil version finished subsequently much earlier than the Hindi version. Some scenes featuring Suriya were also shot at the
University of Madras, Mani Ratnam's
alma mater. The scene where Suriya and Madhavan confront each other was shot at
Broken Bridge, Chennai. == Soundtrack ==