The actor Siddharth will be portraying the role of Srinivas Ramanujan, the genius mathematician, in a movie to be directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who is known for his James Bond movie ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’.

It was the performance of Siddharth in the movie ‘Rang De Basanti’ that caught the director’s eye and made him approach Siddharth for the role.

"One of my friends recommended the film and Siddharth was brilliant in that. He came toEnglandand loved the script," Spottiswoode said, who is currently in Mumbai as a part of the international competition jury at the ongoing Mumbai Film Festival.

Even though the movie is based on Ramanujan and titled "The First Class Man", it won’t be a biopic.

"Hardy thought that Ramanujan could be brilliant and as it turned out the young Indian was more talented than him. They collaborated for four years and wrote wonderful papers. It was a wonderful friendship between the two because Ramanujan was deeply spiritual, while Hardy was only interested in cricket and mathematics," he added.

The movie will be based on the script written by an American writer, who has already won a prize at the Tribeca film festival for best script about science.

The director is currently working on the financial issues of the film and once that’s settled he will start shooting for the same early next year.

Siddharth is currently busy working on Deepa Mehta's film adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Booker winner "Midnight's Children".