The talk of the town at the moment happens to be Lady superstar Nayanthara's upcoming devotional entertainer Mookuthi Amman, which marks the debut of RJ turned comedian turned hero RJ Balaji as a director. Kollywood has been devoid of devotional entertainers would Amman saving her devotees from trouble for a quite sometime (precisely, since the demise of veteran director Rama Narayanan), and Mookuthi Amman promises to bring back the devotional genre to Kollywood.

As Nayanthara as Mookuthi Amman is an epitome of grace, beauty and divinity in the new photos from the movie that have been trending on social media, let's take a look into Kollywood actresses of the 90s and 2000s who took the Amman avatar, before the Lady Superstar.

Ramya Krishnan:

While many praise the performances of Ramya Krishnan for her performances as the arrogant, powerful Neelambari in Padayappa or the majestic Rajamath Sivagami Devi of Baahubali, little do they consider her performances as a goddess in numerous movies. It is believed by many that Ramya Krishnan first played goddess Amman in the 1995 movie Ammoru (dubbed as Amman in Tamil) and turned a blockbuster, but Ramya had played Goddess Kaliamman in the 1986 movie Sarvam Sakthimayam directed by PR Sundaram itself. Post the success of Kodi Ramakrishna's Amman in 1995, she delivered a commanding performance as a goddess in Rama Narayanan's Raja Kaliamman (2000), Nageshwari (2001) and Bharathi Kannan's Sri Raja Rajeshwari (2001).

Meena:

Meena has been known for her superhit movies alongside top actors like Superstar Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan, Sarath Kumar and many others in the 90s, and it was in 2000 that she took her first plunge in the devotional genre. Meena played the Amman role with aplomb in Palayathu Amman directed by Rama Narayanan, and her impressive performance helped the movie appeal with the masses. Though she could not emulate the success of Palayathu Amman later, she played Amman again in movies like Padai Veetu Amman (2002) and the Kannada movies Sri Manjunatha and Grama Devathe (2001).

Roja:

Actress Roja, another top heroine of the 90s turned to the devotional genre with her 100th movie Pottu Amman (2000), which was a bilingual directed by her husband RK Selvamani and Rajarathnam. Pottu Amman was Roja's milestone 100th movie, and despite the commercial failure of the movie, Roja again played a goddess in devotional film specialist Rama Narayanan's Kottai Mariamman (2001), and this movie was fairly successful with positive responses from audience.

Besides these heroines, Radha, the popular heroine of the 80s played goddess Meenakshi in the 1989 flick Meenakshi Thiruvilaiyadal directed by K Shankar, which had Vijayakanth playing lord Sundareswarar. Veteran actress KR Vijaya has portrayed devotional roles as Amman and various other goddesses in numerous movies between the 70s and 80s, and has also appeared in several TV shows as Goddess Amman.