On the occasion of 71st birth anniversary of former Tamil Nadu chief minister and actress, J. Jayalalithaa, on February 25th, it was officially announced that a biopic on her life titled Thalaivi will be directed by AL Vijay.
The film’s makers on Saturday, the occasion of Kangana Ranaut’s birthday, announced that Ranaut will play Jayalalithaa in the upcoming multilingual biopic.
On being roped in to play the prestigious personality, Ranaut said in a statement, “Jayalalithaa ji is one of the biggest female success stories of this century. She was a superstar and went on to become an iconic politician; it’s a great concept for a mainstream film. I am honoured to be a part of this mega project.”
The film, to be released in Tamil as Thalaivi and in Hindi as Jaya, will start rolling from April.
Talking to Times of India, Vijay said, “Actually, producer Vishnu Induri approached me last year with this story idea and asked me if I could direct the film. While I was excited with the idea, I was also reluctant because there’s a huge responsibility of making an honest biopic. She is an achiever who we’ve all grown up watching. But Vishnu was confident about this project. We spent the last eight months researching on her life.”
The film has a story written by Vijayendra Prasad, the writer of Baahubali franchise (2015-2017) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015).
Vijay spent the last 8 months on researching and developing his script. The film will be simultaneous made in Hindi-Tamil.
GV Prakash has been roped in to compose music while Nirav Shah will crank the camera. The rest of the cast and crew will be finalised soon.