Aishwarya Rai Bachchan Acted as if the Film was for Kids, Says Italian Writer

Valerio Massimo Manfredi, Italian historian and author, has criticized Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for her acting skills.

A 2007 Hollywood movie 'The Last Legion' starring Colin Firth, Aishwarya Rai and Ben Kingsley was adopted from Manfredi's novel with the same title.

While talking to IANS news agency, Manfredi said that he was disappointed with Aishwaryas character in the movie.

My character of the leading lady was totally different. She was from a village but Aishwarya was totally different. She was the lover of the protagonist...but she acted as if the film was for kids, Manfredi told IANS.

Although, Manfredi praised Aishwarya Rai for her beautiful eyes by saying, She has such strong expressive and beautiful eyes. Some little expression of love would have made the film more different. The editing was so much like a video game, so many passages were missing...I am not criticizing.

I have noticed that everybody who has not read the book liked the film and those who read the book did not like the movie. This is very usual because they are two different kinds of expression. While the book uses words, cinema uses images, Manfredi added.

When a novel of almost 500 pages has to be squeezed into a 90-page screenplay and then reduced to 50 on the computer screen, it becomes 1/10th of the original work, he said.

The author was in India to launch the India editions of his Alexander trilogy.