Can’t play now, so playing hero
Cricketer Sreesanth signs a trilingual in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam as the protagonist
By : priya sreekumar
Update: 2015-08-05 23:45 GMT
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” says Sreesanth, who is a picture of confidence, days after he has been exonerated of all charges in the 2013 spot fixing scandal. While it may take time for him to be back in the cricket grounds, Sreesanth will play the hero in Sana Yadireddy’s untitled film set against the backdrop of cricket. It will be a trilingual in Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam.
Explaining the reasons for casting Sreesanth, the producer, director and screenplay writer Sana Yadi Reddy says, “Sreesanth is not only a good cricketer but is also a superb actor, dancer and orator with a good following among the youth. My film, though set against a strong cricket background, is a love story and musical. When I narrated the story to Sreesanth, it struck a chord with him because of some similarities with his life and the IPL figures in it too.” The makers are trying to rope in Amitabh Bachchan in the role of Sreesanth’s father and some portions of the film will be shot in Kerala.
The trilingual will be Sree’s first foray into the southern film industry as a hero. He says: “The story is about the struggles of a cricketer and some scenes are very similar to my life. Even a person who has not played first class cricket will be able to relate to the story because it delves deep into a cricketer’s life.”
Will he be comfortable acting? Sreesanth says that he used to act in English plays while at school and that his father had done some plays and acted in films. It was a surgery on his leg in 2011 that had him thinking of a career in movies. He explains: “I was in so much pain that I thought of retiring from the game. Somewhere at that point, I thought of taking up either acting or singing.”
Though Sreesanth insists that cricket is his life, he adds that he does not want to sit simply sit at home but explore new horizons. “Right now, I want to focus on one film at a time,” he says. He has also committed to do a Hindi film, Cabaret, directed by Pooja Bhatt in which he plays the role of a wheelchair-bound man with shades of grey but then its shoot has been postponed.