When Krissna met Rajinikanth, he told him that there was a substantial amount of work to be done in the script, but liked the plot. Shortly before the beginning of principal photography, which was scheduled to begin on 11 March and continue its first schedule for ten days, only the main cast – Rajinikanth as Annaamalai, Khushbu as his love interest and Sarath Babu as his friend Ashok – had been finalised. Khushbu's character initially had the same name as her, but this was later changed to Subbulakshmi alias "Subbu". Since the script was not complete, there was no proper shooting schedule, and Manorama was initially unavailable. But after another film she had signed got cancelled, she was cast in this film as Annaamalai's mother Sivagami. Radha Ravi was not interested in playing Ashok's father Gangadharan as he had grown weary of playing elderly characters, but agreed to appear in "Annaamalai" at Rajinikanth's insistence. Pre-production works such as casting and location hunting took place on the day before shooting began. Balachander's wife Rajam and their daughter Pushpa Kandhaswamy received the producer credit.