Shriya on Top

Shriya is on a roll! From relative obscurity after doing more than a dozen films in Telugu, she has risen to the top slot in Tamil cinema through one film- Rajnikanth's Sivaji. Just being paired with Rajnikanth has given her high voltage screen coverage and resurrected her sagging career. The kind of coverage and reach that `Sivaji` gave her, has made her some kind of demi-goddess in Tamilnadu. After being washed away by Mazhai, Shriya made a fantastic come back and took over the number one heroine slot from Asin and Trisha. Overnight she became a rage and signed two big films- Azhagiya Tamizh Mahan and Kandasamy with top heroes Vijay and Vikram. And producers were willing to pay her a bomb, twice what they were paying other heroines. Shriya was truly on velvet and threw her weight around and also became far too demanding, according to Kollywood sources. The grapevine has it that she did not want the south Indian designers like Nalini Sriram or Anu to do her costumes, and instead demanded for Manish Malhotra (who did her Sivaji costumes) or a Neeta Lulla! But Tamil producers put their foot down, which caused a lot of heartburn. And her heroes were also feeling the heat, when she almost signed to do an item number in a top comedian's film where he is in the hero's role! A top hero who was to do a film with her to be directed by a choreographer immediately told his London based producer to remove her from the project. But soon, better sense prevailed and the latest news is that Shriya refused to do this item number in the comedian's film for which she was offered a mind boggling amount!