MUMBAI: Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone was all but finalized for the role of the Tamil wife in the screen adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s ‘2 States’ to be jointly produced by Karan Johar and Sajid Nadiadwala. She instead chose to do Rohit Shetty’s ‘Chennai Express’ featuring Shah Rukh Khan where again she plays a Tamil girl.

But with a difference.

Deepika doesn’t get to talk to Shah Rukh Khan at all in the film.

Says a source, “Deepika plays a Tamilian who meets Shah Rukh Khan who’s a North Indian on a train journey. She can’t follow what he says because he speaks in Hindi and he can’t understand her because she speaks only in Tamil.”

But, here’s the catch. Though the Tamil girl in the film can’t speak Hindi, she loves Hindi songs, and sings them fluently. The film therefore would have Deepika’s character singing a lot of evergreen Hindi melodies, but not talking in Hindi.