Director AL Vijay’s upcoming film Thalaivi featuring Kangana Ranaut is based on the life of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. The film has been in the making for nearly a year now. Reportedly, the makers had approached Balakrishna aka Balayya to be a part of the film.
However, Balayya turned down the offer for reasons best known to him. Director AL Vijay wanted Balayya to play his father NTR in Thalaivi. According to reports, Jayalalithaa and NT Rama Rao (NTR) were good friends and Vijay had written scenes to showcase their friendship in the film.
Initially, he had approached Jr NTR to play his grandfather in Thalaivi. But, he immediately rejected the offer because he has always said that he will never play his grandfather NTR in any film. This is the reason why Jr NTR was not a part of the two NTR biopics, which featured Balayya as NTR.
Atfer Jr NTR rejected the offer, the makers of Thalaivi initiated talks with Balayya. However, the latter turned down the offer saying that he doesn’t want to play the same character again.
In the past, Jayalalithaa and NTR had acted in several movies and always maintained a cordial relationship with each other even after they took to politics.
Thalaivi features Arvind Swami in the role of late actor-politician MG Ramachandran aka MGR. The film, which is produced by Vishnu Vardhan Induri and Shaailesh R Singh, is slated to release worldwide in three languages on June 26, 2020.
