Kangana Ranaut resumes ‘Thalaivi’ shoot; shares pics from set with director AL Vijay

Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut resumed shooting for the mega-budget project Thalaivi, a biopic on the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. On Monday, the actor took to social media to share behind-the-scene photos from the sets of the film, in which she is seen discussing a scene with director AL Vijay.

She posted, “Good morning friends, these are some stills from yesterday’s early morning scene discussion with my absolutely talented and most affectionate director A.L Vijay ji, there are many amazing places in this world but the most soothing and comforting to me is a film set #Thalaivi.”

Good morning friends, these are some stills from yesterday’s early morning scene discussion with my absolutely talented and most affectionate director A.L Vijay ji, there are many amazing places in this world but the most soothing and comforting to me is a film set #Thalaivi pic.twitter.com/qGjw0nQjRQ

— Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) October 5, 2020

Directed by AL Vijay, the biopic is bankrolled by Vishnu Vardhan Induri. Arvind Swami has been roped in to play the role of former Tamil Nadu CM and legendary movie star MGR, who played an important role in Jayalalithaa’s political career. Reliable sources close to the production house have revealed that Thalaivi will be a magnum opus, with rough estimates of the total production cost being around Rs 100 crore.

In the film, Kangana will be seen sporting two different looks. For the older version of Jayalalithaa, the actor will have to gain weight and also apply prosthetic make-up to look mature.

The Queen actor revealed that she did a lot of research to portray the role of Jayalalithaa. “I’ve researched a lot [to play Jayalalithaa]. She (Jayalalithaa) was a different kind of actor. She was not like me. She was a more glamorous star… somebody like an Aishwarya Rai in Bollywood. It was a very big challenge to fit into those shoes because I’m not known as a glamorous star,” she told The Hindu.

Recently, Arvind Swami took to Twitter and shared his look from the biopic, following which a teaser featuring MGR’s song ‘Naan Ungal Veetu Pillai’ from the 1968 Tamil film Pudhiya Boomi with Arvind Swami portraying MGR was unveiled.

The biopic also stars Poorna aka Shamna Kasim and veteran actor Madhoo. While Poorna will play the role of the controversial Sasikala, Jayalalithaa’s aide, Madhoo will be essaying Janaki Ramachandran’s role. There are reports doing the rounds that actors such as Jagapathi Babu, Jayasudha and Sathyaraj will be playing crucial roles, but the makers are yet to announce the rest of the cast and crew.

Thalaivi will release in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu. The film is written by Vijayendra Prasad, who had previously written movies like Baahubali, Manikarnika and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Hollywood make-up artist Jason Collins, who has worked in Captain Marvel, Hunger Games and Blade Runner, is in charge of the prosthetic make-up. GV Prakash has been roped in to compose the music and Nirav Shah will crank the camera.

(Content provided by Digital Native)