Actor Pooja Hegde has been cast opposite Vijay in his upcoming 65th Tamil film, the makers of the film announced through a short video posted on their social media on Wednesday.
The film, which is tentatively called Thalapathy 65, will be written and directed by filmmaker Nelson Dilipkumar. It will be produced by media baron Kalanithi Maran under the Sun Pictures banner.
The gorgeous @hegdepooja onboard as the female lead of #Thalapathy65 !@actorvijay @Nelsondilpkumar @anirudhofficial#Thalapathy65bySunPictures #PoojaHegdeInThalapathy65 pic.twitter.com/flp4izppAk
— Sun Pictures (@sunpictures) March 24, 2021
The film, which marks the first collaboration of the lead actors, is also Hegde’s comeback to the Tamil film industry after nearly a decade. Her last Tamil film, which was also her acting debut, was the superhero drama film Mugamoodi (2012) opposite Jiiva and directed by Mysskin.
Thalapathy 65’s music will be composed by Anirudh Ravichander. Manoj Paramahamsa is in charge of cinematography. He had earlier collaborated with Vijay in Nanban, a Tamil remake of Hindi film 3 Idiots. Manoj had tweeted saying that the film will be a “pan-Indian affair”.
Speaking to Silverscreen India earlier, he had said, “The film will appeal to everyone. By saying that it will be a pan-Indian film, I had meant that it will have a universal appeal. The team has commenced the film’s technical preparations.”
Riaz, the film’s publicity manager, said that the film was in the pre-production stage. “Further announcements on the film will be updated one by one in the future,” he said.
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Hegde, who was last seen in the 2020 Telugu action drama film Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo, will be seen in Telugu romantic drama Radhe Shyam opposite Prabhas. She will be featuring in the Chiranjeevi-starrer Acharya, for which Hegde wrapped up her schedule recently. She will also be seen in the Hindi film Cirkus, co-starring Ranveer Singh and Jacqueline Fernandez.
Meanwhile, Vijay’s last film Master, which became the first big budget Tamil film to release theatrically after the Covid-19 induced lockdown, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The film had been a strong crowd-puller to theatres after they reopened after a long duration after the lockdown.