After winning over hearts in Telugu filmdom with films such as Pellichoopulu and the path-breaking Arjun Reddy, actor Vijay Deverakonda is all set to test his luck in Tamil filmdom with his next project Nota, to be directed by Irumugan fame Anand Shankar.
On Thursday, the project was officially launched in Chennai and it was announced that the team will go on floors soon and will be shot over the course of next two months. Mehreen Pirzada, seen in films such as Raja The Great and Nenjil Thunivirunathal, has been finalised as the leading lady.
Going by the first look poster of Nota, which features Deverakonda dressed in white and flashing his inked middle finger, it could be guessed that this may be a political thriller. Speaking on the occasion, Vijay Deverakonda told reporters: “For all the love people from Tamil Nadu have given me, let me tell them that they’ll see my performance in my own voice. I can guarantee it. Tamil audiences love made me want to go bilingual.”
He went on to add, "Post the success of Pellichoopulu, I received a lot of offers from Tamil industry. I told myself I won’t do a Tamil film unless I know the language. If I want to do it, I want to do it perfectly. Producer Gnanavel Raja brought me this offer and was after me to give it a listen. Even though I wasn’t too keen on doing a Tamil, I decided to listen to the script for his sake. When I heard it the first time, it was after a tiring day of shoot and I remember telling Anand that he should narrate it again on a day when I’m not so tired and feeling zoned out. He agreed and we met after a week and this time when I heard the script, I immediately jumped at the opportunity,” Deverakonda said.
Post Irumugan, Anand Shankar was planning on foraying into Telugu industry and is rumoured to have even explored a few opportunities. When things didn’t look positive, he approached producer Gnanavel Raja, who had been planning to work with him since the release of his first film Arima Nambi, an action-thriller which featured Vikram Prabhu and Priya Anand in the lead.
Heaping praise on his producer, Anand Shankar said that he’s one of the few producers who bets on stories and not on an actor or a combination.
(Content provided by Digital Native)