Samantha Ruth Prabhu will soon be seen in Raj and DK's spy action-thriller series Citadel: Honey Bunny. Recently, co-director Raj Nidimoru mentioned in an interview with News 18 Showsha that Samantha was not an “automatic choice” for the role. He explained that due to her limited proficiency in Hindi, she was not initially considered for the part of Agent Honey.

Raj and DK on Samantha Prabhu's Hindi skills

While reflecting on the reason behind Samantha not being their first choice stated that, “At that time, Varun Dhawan had called DK and DK told me, ‘What about him for Citadel?’ We thought that maybe having Varun would work and we decided to switch around a little bit. For a long time, we kept thinking about who could play Honey. The first version of Citadel: Honey Bunny had a very Hindi-speaking female protagonist. Samantha’s Hindi, on the other hand, was extremely minimal during The Family Man 2. That’s why she wasn’t an automatic choice.”

He further said, “There was always the question of how she would do this whole role. And then, I was surprised how she suddenly learned a new language like Hindi. For a Hindi-speaking person to speak Telugu or Tamil, it’s almost next to impossible to sound right. Similarly, for a Telugu or Tamil speaker, picking up Hindi is tough. That’s why I thought that it was impossible to get an actor like Samantha, who could get close to getting the language right. Hence, we weren’t thinking of Samantha at that point at all.”

About Citadel: Honey Bunny

Varun Dhawan and Samantha play titular roles in Citadel: Honey Bunny as the spies Bunny and Honey respectively. Varun's character's original name is unveiled as Rahi Gambhir, who is Nadia Sinh played by Priyanka Chopra's father. The upcoming espionage action series is a spin-off to Priyanka's Citadel (2023). The Raj and DK directorial also features Kay Kay Menon, Simran Bagga, Sikandar Kher, Saqib Saleem and others in pivotal characters. The show is scheduled to release on November 7, 2024.

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