The teaser of the YSR biopic, titled Yathra, was released on Sunday, July 8 to commemorate his birth anniversary. And as expected, it went viral within minutes of its launch. Malayalam mega star Mammootty, who plays the late chief minister of Andhra Pradesh YS Rajasekar Reddy looks every bit like him and fans are now confident that he will pull off the role with ease and elan.
Speaking about casting Mammootty as YSR, Yathra’s director Mahu V Raghav told in an interview to the Indian Express, “I grew up watching his (Mammootty) films. Keeping that aside, in the context of YSR, YSR was perceived to be a strong and courageous leader. To portray his character, we needed someone who can get in that aura of a leader who we can look up to. I have seen a lot of his films and I thought Mammukka doesn’t have to put in a lot of effort to pull off something like this.”
On the film, he had said, “It is about a leader who went on a journey. And the subplots are very human about a farmer and a healthcare professional, which anyone can relate to.”
Yathra, which went on to the floors recently, has a bevy of stars in the cast including Jagapathi Babu playing YSR's father YS Raja Reddy, Rao Ramesh as KVP Ramachandra Rao, who is YSR's closest friend from his medical college days and Suhasini Mani Ratnam as the former minister Sabitha Indra Reddy.
Yathra is being produced jointly by Vijay Chilla and Shashi Devi under the banner of 70MM Entertainments. The shooting of this film began a few days ago in Hyderabad and will be wrapped up within a couple of months.
Reports are that Yathra will hit the marquee as a Sankaranthi release next year. Yathra will be released in Telugu as well as Tamil and Mammootty will be dubbing for both the versions.