Ravie Dubey has picked a side. The actor, who makes his film debut as Lakshman in Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana, has spoken up for co-star Ranbir Kapoor after weeks of online sparring over whether Ranbir suits the role of Lord Rama.

Speaking to Variety India, Dubey didn't hedge. "I think Ranbir is simply the best we have. He is a superstar of epic proportions, but what has stayed with me even more is the human being and the artiste I have witnessed at close range," he said. He went further, calling Ranbir's set discipline "unparalleled" and saying he'd heard about the work ethic, the etiquette, the preparation, long before he saw it up close.

The casting chatter has been running since the film's first teaser landed, with reactions splitting fairly cleanly. Some viewers have questioned whether Ranbir, known for playing broken, morally grey men in films like Animal, fits the image of Rama as the epic imagines him. Others have come around, pointing to the teaser's visual scale and Ranbir's screen presence. It's the kind of casting argument mythological cinema tends to invite, and this one isn't cooling off before release.

Dubey also used the interview to talk about Ranbir off camera, describing him as "grounded, warm and inclusive" and saying there's no visible weight of stardom in how he deals with people on set. He called it a privilege to be part of the project alongside Namit Malhotra, Tiwari, Yash and Sai Pallavi.

Separately, Ranbir has already addressed the mechanics of his own casting, at least the dual-role part of it. He plays both Lord Rama and Lord Parshurama in the film, and told Collider the logic was rooted in the mythology itself. "Lord Vishnu had different avatars. Lord Rama was an avatar, and Lord Parshurama was an avatar before Lord Rama," he said, adding that getting to play both was "fantastic."

Ramayana is built on a scale Hindi cinema hasn't really attempted before. Based on Valmiki's Sanskrit epic, the two-part film carries a reported budget of Rs 4,000 crore and features Sunny Deol, Anupam Kher, Kajal Aggarwal, Rakul Preet Singh, Vivek Oberoi, Kunal Kapoor, Arun Govil, Lara Dutta and Yash, who makes his Hindi debut here.

The first part is set for Diwali 2026, with the second arriving a year later on Diwali 2027. The film's trailer has already cleared the CBFC with a U certificate, running just over four minutes. Whether that trailer, and the film itself, settles the Rama debate one way or the other is going to be the real test, and audiences won't have to wait too much longer to render that verdict themselves.