Being the first is nothing new for Ash

To add another feather in her cap, Rai is set to be the first actress in India's first Imax movie Taj Mahal, the Heart of India in which she will play the role of Mumtaz, the film's director Bharatbala said.

According to the director, whose first film Hari om was screened at an international festival in India recently, 60 percent of the shoot of the Imax movie is to be completed soon. Bharatbala will be India's first director to work on Imax format which involves a giant screen giving the viewers the effect of 3-D film without the necessity of wearing special glasses.

The director said the film would have a world premiere and there are nearly 400 Imax threatres across the world. India has two Imax theatresin Bombay and Hyderabad.

Enacting the role of Mumtaz will certainly be a new experience in a truly period film for Rai although she has already acted in films like Sanjay Leela Bhansali's blockbuster Devdas, based on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya's novel and Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali on the novel of the same name by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

British director of Indian origin Gurinder Chaddha's Bride and Prejudice catapulted Rai to international limelight even though the film received mixed reviews both in India, the US and the UK.

Rai seems to be on a roll. There were reports recently that she could appear along with Hollywood star Brad Pitt in director Shekhar Kapur's next celluloid venture on the life of Lord Buddha. But Kapur, who has made films like Masoom, Bandit Queen and Elizabeth, is yet to confirm this.