Shiv Sagar has a problem with exactly one piece of casting in Nitesh Tiwari's Ramayana, and he's not shy about naming it.

"Personally, I cannot accept Ranbir Kapoor as Ram because after Animal, I cannot accept him as Ram," he told ANI, in comments carried by Filmfare, DNA India and Bollywood Bubble. The producer-director is the grandson of Ramanand Sagar, whose 1987 television Ramayan is still the yardstick against which every screen version of the epic gets measured. That lineage gives his opinion a certain weight, even when it's just one man's take.

His argument isn't about acting chops. He's clear that Ranbir Kapoor is, in his words, "a very good actor." The issue is image. Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal cast Ranbir as a violent, morally messy son with a possessive streak, and that film is barely two years old in public memory. Shiv Sagar's point is that Ram ji doesn't share space well with a character like that.

Compare that to how he sees the rest of the cast. Yash as Ravana and Sai Pallavi as Sita get his approval specifically because, in his telling, they don't carry "that much baggage." He says his grandfather's team leaned on fresh faces for exactly this reason. "We usually take a new face in our serials, so they don't have any baggage or history," he said.

There's also a cynical read built into his comments. Shiv Sagar suggested the studio may have gone with Ranbir precisely because a star draws a marketing push that a newcomer wouldn't. "Maybe if they didn't take Ranbir, the film wouldn't have been marketed so well," he said, framing it as a trade-off the makers likely weighed and accepted.

What gives his objection some teeth is the distinction he draws between mythology and memory. "This is not mythology. In the West, we call it mythology, even in India it is called mythology, but it is our history," he said. "People worship them every day." That's the crux of his worry: a Ram who's also fresh off Animal in the audience's head might sit uneasily with people for whom this isn't just a film role.

He didn't leave it entirely bleak, though. Shiv Sagar was upfront that his opinion isn't the final word. "In reality, the public is the king, and whatever the public says will be the final verdict," he said, adding that some of the costuming could have been sharper too.

The trailer for Ramayana, dropped a month ago with Hans Zimmer and A.R. Rahman on the score and DNEG handling the visual effects, has already split viewers online over Ranbir Kapoor's look. Shiv Sagar's comments just give that argument a more pointed shape, and a source with genuine family history in the material.

Ramayana: Part 1 releases in theatres worldwide this Diwali, with Part 2 following on Diwali 2027. Whether audiences carry Animal into the theatre with them is something no interview can settle in advance.