Alia Bhatt has joined the cast of SS Rajamouli‘s RRR or Roudhram Ranam Rudhiram in Hyderabad on Monday. The Telugu period drama, based loosely on the lives of two tribal leaders, marks Bhatt’s Telugu cinema debut. RRR will be a multilingual film with a pan-India release in 2021.
The actor landed in Hyderabad on Sunday and shared the news on social media.
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The film’s official Twitter handle announced her arrival as well.
A very warm welcome to our dearest #Sita, the supremely talented and beautiful @Aliaa08 on to the sets of #RRRMovie! 🌟❤️#AliaBhatt pic.twitter.com/R7fSMkEkAd
— RRR Movie (@RRRMovie) December 7, 2020
Reportedly made on a budget of Rs 450 crore, RRR stars Junior NTR, Ram Charan, Alia Bhatt, Ajay Devgn, Shriya Saran, Alison Doody, Olivia Morris, and Ray Stevenson in prominent roles. The film will release in five languages — Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi.
RRR revolves around fictional events in the lives of two freedom fighters, Alluri Sitaramaraju and Komaram Bheem. Both fought for tribal rights, Sitaramaraju against the British, and Bheem against the Nizam’s rule in Hyderabad.
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Earlier in November, the Telangana BJP State president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar had threatened to burn down theatres if RRR depicted Bheem (played by Junior NTR) wearing a skullcap. Kumar claimed that not depicting Bheem as a Hindu would “[undermine] the sentiments of adivasis“. However, the claim that Komaram Bheem was a Hindu has been rejected outright by the adivasi community.
SS Rajamouli, who has not worked on a film since the Baahubali films, had launched RRR in 2018. Rajamouli said this film would not be a biopic, “My film will not dwell on the stories of their rebellion that we already know. But, it will focus on what would have happened if they had met during their self-imposed exile and became friends.”
Shooting for RRR had begun in 2019 but came to a halt due to the Covid-19 lockdown. On October 5 this year, the cast and crew had resumed shooting in Hyderabad.
A video uploaded by the team on YouTube on October 6 showed the team shooting with Covid-19 safety precautions.
Music composer MM Keeravaani, who worked with Rajamouli on Eega (2012), and the Baahubali films, is also working on this film, along with editor Sreekar Prasad and cinematographer KK Senthil Kumar.
According to earlier reports, Alia Bhatt agreed to RRR despite having a number of Hindi films in the pipeline as she has been keen to star in a Telugu film.