Rakul Preet Singh to play weightlifter Karnam Malleswari in biopic?
A biopic on Indian weightlifter Karnam Malleswari was announced on the occasion of her 45th birthday in June. The yet-untitled Telugu project, which will be made as a pan-Indian film, will be directed by Sanjana Reddy. The latest update is that the makers are busy with the casting process and are quite keen on roping in Rakul Preet Singh for the titular role.
In a recent interview with India Today, producer Kona Venkat said: “Rakul is a pan-Indian star and a good actor. Since this film will be a multilingual film, she is definitely in our mind. But we haven’t finalised anyone as of now,” he said.
While the film will be jointly produced by Kona Venkat and MVV Satyanarayana, the rest of the cast and crew will be announced soon. The makers unveiled an announcement poster which came with the tagline ‘Journey of a girl who lifted the nation’. Kona Venkat will also double up as a writer on the film. He has earlier been associated as a writer with films such as Mom, Geethanjali, Baadshah, Ready and Dookudu, among many others.
The film will tell the story of Karnam Malleswari, the legendary weightlifter who was the first Indian woman to win a medal at the Olympics. She won the bronze medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In an interview to Asian Age in March, Venkat opened up about the project and why he wanted to tell Malleswari’s story.
“This film is going to be an inspiration to the present generation. A poor girl from a remote village in Srikakulam district won the bronze medal for India in the Olympics. That is definitely a big story to narrate,” he said.
“She has faced so many hurdles and problems to reach this level. It wasn’t easy. She told us her whole story and gave us permission to portray all the incidents in her life,” he added.
Venkat further added that the film will also be made in Tamil and Hindi apart from Telugu. There are also rumours that Taapsee Pannu is another option that the makers have in mind. An official announcement is yet to be made on the casting.
Rakul Preet Singh was last seen in the Hindi film Marjaavaan. Her last Telugu release was the Nagarjuna starrer Manmadhudu 2. Last year, she also starred in Tamil films NGK with Suriya and Dev with Karthi apart from the Hindi romantic comedy De De Pyaar De.
Rakul currently has two projects in Tamil. In Sivakarthikeyan’s Ayalaan, she is said to play an astronomer. The film also stars Isha Koppikar in a negative role. Rakul also has Kamal Haasan’s Indian 2, directed by Shankar, in her kitty. In the highly anticipated sequel to the 1996 Tamil film Indian, she’s rumoured to be playing the lead opposite Siddharth. If the industry grapevine is anything to go by, Siddharth plays Senapathy’s grandson who sets out to avenge his father’s death. The film, produced by Lyca Productions, has music by Anirudh Ravichander.
(Content provided by Digital Native)