Puri Jagannadh’s Liger starring Vijay Deverakonda and Ananya Panday released today, August 25 amid much anticipation. Talking about the film, the director said in a recent interview that this was the ‘best time’ to release a pan-Indian movie. The film backed by Puri Connects and Dharma Productions marked Vijay’s Bollywood debut. In an interview, the director said that he is ‘glad’ Liger happened as there is so much cultural exchange happening. He also added that any good story clicked with the audience and Liger is not just a regional story.
Talking to PTI, the filmmaker said, “It is a universal story about the rise of an underdog. This can be watched in any language. That’s when we thought of making it as a pan-India movie with Vijay.”
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He also added that he wishes to reunite with Amitabh Bachchan, with whom he had made Bbuddah… Hoga Terra Baap.
“I wanted to come here and direct a movie long back. After ‘Bbuddah… Hoga Terra Baap’ I signed a movie with Mahesh Babu, NTR Jr and others, and I got stuck there. I was waiting to come here but I had prior commitments in Telugu cinema. Now, I want to direct a film here and work with my favourite actor Amitabh Bachchan, he is my childhood hero and then (with) all the Khans,” he added.
Talking about Liger, he said that he created a hero with a disability for the first time. In the film, Deverakonda plays a kickboxer with a stutter. Jagannadh said, “I usually create strong and massy characters but I have never created a hero with a disability. When I got this idea 10 years ago, I thought of many disabilities like showing the hero as a blind person or man with one broken leg but then the thought of exploring stammering came up. We all felt it would be great fun to do it with the backdrop of action.”
“I was not worried about the fight sequences. Vijay did it all really well including the stammering part. When you show deformity of any kind, we were sure we would not like to show the character in a sympathetic way. The character is strong and powerful,” he added.
Liger also stars Ramya Krishnan, Ronit Roy, Makrand Deshpande, and Vishnu Reddy among others.
