Tamil actor Vijay Sethupathi will be seen in Leader Ramaiah, a biopic on to-be Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah, which is being made in five languages – Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Hindi. According to the director Sathya Ratnam, the film will have two parts. Though Vijay Sethupathi will be seen in a brief appearance in the first part, he will play a major role in the second part, the director revealed in a recent interview to South First.
“Vijay Sethupathi plays a major role in part two of the biopic, but he will also play a cameo at a crucial juncture in the first part of the film. We have several leading artists acting in the film, which we will reveal in the coming days,” the director said.
While it is not confirmed whether Vijay Sethupathi will play the character of Siddaramaiah in the film, last year several media outlets had reported that the 96 actor will be playing the role.
This will be the first time that Vijay Sethupathi is seen in a biopic. Though he was earlier supposed to feature in a biopic on Sri Lankan cricketing great Muttiah Muralitharan, titled 800. However, after backlash from the Tamil community, the actor dropped out of the project. Muralitharan belongs to the marginalised ‘upcountry Tamil’ community. But his support to former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is accused of committing war crimes, had led to outrage against the movie from Tamil groups. An estimated 40,000 Sri Lankan Tamil civilians died in the last stages of the war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army when Rajapaksa was the president.
Later, another actor replaced Vijay Sethupathi in this movie.
Vijay Sethupathi was last seen in Viduthalai part 1. His upcoming films include Jawan alongside Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Mumbaikar.