MUMBAI: Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai is in Tunisia to film her first Hollywood venture, Roman sword-and-sandal epic The Last Legion in which she sheds her angelic image to play a Byzantine warrior woman on horseback, her agent said.

“Shooting will commence shortly,” her agent Hari Singh told AFP, adding that she had left for the North African country earlier this week.

The movie, being produced by Dino De Laurentis and Raffaella De Laurentis and directed by Doug Lefler, is based on author Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s 2003 novel of the same name.

Aishwarya, a former Miss World and a leading actress in Bollywood, will play the lead female role of ‘Mira’, a Byzantine warrior in the film opposite actors Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley.

The movie is set against the fall of the Roman Empire in 470 AD and centres on its last emperor, 12-year-old Romulus Augustus, played by Thomas Sangster.

Rome was then a city on the brink of chaos and destruction. Imprisoned by rebels on the island of Capri, Romulus is aided by his teacher Ambrosinus (Kingsley) and legionnaire Aurelius (Colin Firth), to escape from the island.

Rai accompanies this small band of Roman soldiers whose mission is to restore the glory of the Roman empire.

“The list of requirements for the one major female role in the film, Mira, was long. We needed an actress of rare beauty, with enough screen presence to hold her own against the likes of Colin Firth and Sir Ben Kingsley. Aishwarya was the obvious choice,” Doug Lefler told Hollywood trade magazine Variety.

Lefler’s credits include second unit direction on Spider-Man and A Simple Plan.

Aishwarya made her first foray into foreign production with Bride and Prejudice, directed by Indian-born British director Gurinder Chaddha, which disappointed at the box-office in India but was a success with audiences in Britain and the United States.

Her other overseas venture, Mistress of Spices, directed by Paul Berges, husband of Gurinder Chaddha, is slated for a Toronto Film festival opening in September.—AFP