Over two years since the demise of Tamil Nadu’s Amma aka former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, two biopics on the late leader have been confirmed. While we know that in director A Priyadarshini’s The Iron Lady we will be seeing Nithya Menen play the charismatic leader, a statement on casting from AL Vijay’s Thalaivi was yet to be made.
It has now been confirmed by the film’s team that actor Kangana Ranaut who appeared in films like Fashion and Queen will be essaying the film’s lead as Jayalalithaa. Director AL Vijay who will be helming the project confirmed the news to TNM. Kangana made her debut in Tamil with late director Jeeva’s Dhaam Dhoom starring alongside Jayam Ravi as Shenbaga. She played a woman from the village in this film.
The super talented #KanganaRanaut will play the lead role in #Thalaivi, the #Jayalalithaabiopic produced by @vibri_media @vishinduri and directed by #Vijay #Vijayendraprasad #NiravShah @gvprakash #HBDKanganaRanaut pic.twitter.com/q1fB76LpK3
— sridevi sreedhar (@sridevisreedhar) March 22, 2019
It is interesting to note that while actors like Vidya Balan, Trisha and Nayanthara have been suggested by fans to play the role of Jayalalithaa, film producer Vibiri Media's choice to cast Kangana comes as a surprise.
Hyderabad-based Vibri Media, which has produced Telugu films like 83 and the NTR biopic, made the announcement in August last year. The film’s title was revealed to be Thalaivi on February 24, Jayalalithaa’s birthday. Vijayendra Prasad, writer of Baahubali and Bajrangi Baijaan will supervise the script of the film that will be made in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.
More details on the film’s cast and crew are yet to be made.
In 2017, veteran director Bharathiraja also announced that he would be helming a biopic on Jayalalithaa titled Thaai: Puratchi Thalaivi which will be bankrolled by Bharadwaj. More announcements have not been made since.
Director AL Vijay, who has made films like Thalaivaa with Vijay and Madarasapattinam with Arya, has Watchman and Devi 2 in different stages of production. Watchman is a Tamil thriller starring GV Prakash Kumar in the lead and Devi 2 is a sequel to his 2016 musical horror comedy starring Prabhu Deva and Tamannaah.