Ketan Mehta is on the roll these days. Though his ambitious Aamir Khan-starrer patriotic saga Mangal Pandey is till couple of months away from hitting the marquee, the director has already begun working on starting his new venture Jhansi Ki Rani followed by life and times of Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Mehta has zeroed in on Aishwarya Rai to play the legendary queen.

"We are in the process of negotiations. We have met Aishwarya and she has shown interest in the project. But the final casting hasn't taken place yet. Right from when we began work on the biography of (the sepoy-turned-revolutionary) Mangal Pandey, the film was planned as a trilogy," divulges Mehta.

Now that's what we call a casting coup in 'Reel'...