Actress Rajshri Ponnappa, who was last seen in a Kannada anthology drama directed by Pannaga Bharana, will make her Tamil debut with Samuthirakani’s Adutha Saattai.
Talking about it to The Times Of India, Ponnappa said, “I star alongside Samuthirakani sir and we finished shooting the first schedule earlier this month. The script and role excited me, and being on such a set makes you want to give your best.”
The actress added that Samuthirakani watched her performance in Mumbai when he was shooting in the city for the Rajinikanth-starrer Kaala. She also said that she was supposedly auditioned for an earlier film but couldn’t work on the project. “I think he had mentally made note of me during both instances, which resulted in the team contacting me.”
Explaining her role in the film, the actress said that she plays an assistant professor who teaches Tamil in the film. “The film is about some of the pressing issues that are relevant for students, which includes caste system. While there are films that use colleges as their backdrop, they are largely restricted to being love stories. This film will cater to that void, where films about college students are about things that matter to them.”
Rajshri Ponnappa made her acting debut with the Kannada thriller drama Vasundhara (2014) directed by T S Nagabharana. She then played the lead in Rocket (2015), a romantic comedy directed by Shiva Shashi.
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Adutha Saattai is a sequel to 2012 film Saattai, a drama directed by M Anbazhagan. The film featured Samuthirakani and Thambi Ramaiah in pivotal roles – as government high school teachers. Samuthirakani played a responsible teacher who is loved for his deeds. It is said that the the character – Dayalan – played by Samuthirakani in the film, is similar to the one in the book ‘Pogadhinga Sir, Please!’ written by Govind Bhagavan, a high school teacher. The book revolves around the author’s life and the events he had witnessed on the job.