Nithya Menen has been roped in to play Savitri in the biopic on veteran actor NT Rama Rao. Initially, Keerthy Suresh, who had film buffs spellbound with her performance as Savitri in Mahanati / Nadigaiyar Thilagam, was signed to play the legendary actor once again in the same role that she had immortalised, but citing date issues she later backed off from the project.
Interestingly, Nithya Menen has also been roped in to play Jayalalithaa in the recently announced biopic on the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu titled The Iron Lady, to be directed by A Priyadarshini.
It is well-known that Savitri and NT Rama Rao shared screen space in several films during their heydays as hero and heroine and came out with many blockbuster hits. Therefore, it is natural that Savitri would be an important character in his biopic.
The NTR biopic is one of the most anticipated films with N Balakrishna, NTR’s son, playing the title role. Interestingly, he is also co-producing the film along with Sai Korrapati and Vishnu Induri. The film, which went on the floors recently, has an impressive star cast that includes Vidya Balan, Rana Daggubati, Sumanth, Mohan Babu and others.
While Vidya Balan will play NTR’s wife Basavatharakam, Rana Daggubati will be seen as the Andhra Pradesh chief minister and NTR’s son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu. It may be mentioned here that the initial plan was to sign Naga Chaitanya to play Akkineni Nageswara Rao in the biopic but he was replaced with Sumanth as it is a highly performance-oriented role.
The biopic, which is a well-researched project, initially had Teja helming the affairs as the director but the mantle was later handed over to Krish who is now heading the project. The shooting for this film is currently underway with plans to have it released for Sankranthi next year.