Divya Delhi: Raj and DK's espionage action-thriller Citadel: Honey Bunny will star Samantha Ruth Prabhu. Co-director Raj Nidimoru told News 18 Showsha that Samantha was not a “automatic choice” for the part. He revealed that she was first rejected for Agent Honey owing to her inadequate Hindi. After myositis diagnosis, Samantha Ruth Prabhu ‘begged them to go on’ and requested Raj-DK to find her successor. On why Samantha wasn't their first option, they said, "At that time, Varun (Dhawan) called DK and DK told me, ‘What about him for Citadel?'" We changed things up thinking Varun would work. We debated who could play Honey for a while. Citadel: Honey Bunny's first female heroine spoke Hindi. Samantha's Hindi was hardly audible in The Family Man 2. Therefore, she wasn't an obvious pick." He said, “How she would do this whole role was always a question. I was amazed when she learnt Hindi. Telugu and Tamil are quite tough for Hindi speakers to pronounce correctly. Telugu and Tamil speakers find Hindi difficult. I felt it was impossible to find an actress like Samantha who could get the language correct. Thus, we didn't consider Samantha then."