With the script of the film which he intended to make in Tamil, Ratnam first met Kamal Haasan to play the film's protagonist, after his friend Kitty arranged a meeting with the actor. Haasan demanded major changes to the script if he were to play the lead role, and introduced Ratnam to his brother Charuhasan, who pledged to help find the script a producer. Ratnam revealed that he was open to the idea of selling the script to a popular director so that he could learn about filmmaking during the production process, but his meetings with K. Balachander, Bharathiraja and Mahendran were not successful. Haasan had later claimed that he was unable to work in "Pallavi Anupallavi" due to his commitment to "Raja Paarvai" (1981) and around the same time "also getting into Hindi films".