MOHANLAL IS H'WOOD BOUND :TOI

MOHANLAL IS H'WOOD BOUND

The actor will play tainted hedge-fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam in director Nayan Padrai's Billion Dollar Raja

Sanjith Sidhardhan

Although Mohanlal's muchhyped venture Nair San with Jackie Chan never took off, fans of Malayalam cinema can now rejoice. The megastar has landed another ticket to Hollywood.
The actor has clinched the deal to play tainted hedge-fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam in US-based Gujarati director Nayan Padrai's upcoming Hollywood flick, Billion Dollar Raja.
Confirming the news, Mohanlal says, "Yes, I was approached for the Hollywood film. However, it's too early to reveal the details of the project. I will give more information about it once the film goes on floors."
The actor, whose schedule for the next two years is almost packed, is also tight-lipped about when and how he would accommodate the project. "For all I can say at the moment, yes, the project is in the pipeline," he adds.
At the peak of his career, Raj had managed more than US $7 billion and was considered one of Wall Street's ingenious stock pickers before he was found guilty and sentenced in October 2011 to 11 years in US federal prison, on counts of security frauds and conspiracy to commit them. This was the longest-ever prison sentence for insider trading in USA.
Talking to us from the US, director Nayan says that he, along with producer Sheetal Vyas, had finished scripting the film a few months ago and had been in discussion with Mohanlal ever since."Mohanlal's similarity to Raj is uncanny. But that's just a small reason for choosing him; he's such a brilliant actor and we are huge fans of his movies," he says.
Incidentally, the casting news of Mohanlal comes exactly a year after Nayan's production house had announced the project, in the wake of Occupy Wall Street campaign and Raj's sentence. And this time too, it is expected to make headlines with ex-Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, one of those convicted in the case, awaiting sentence later this month.
A host of colourful characters playing the fund manager's highly-placed friends will also add more star power to the big-budget flick, which will primarily be shot in New York, besides in a few other foreign locations. About the movie, Nayan, who previously helmed the English film When Harry Tries to Marry which was also produced by Sheetal, says, "It's a story of greed, philanthropy, back-stabbing, wire-tapping and the rise and fall of a billionaire. It has all the drama elements which are possibly trademarks of a great movie in the making." [email protected]

ACROSS THE SEAS: Mohanlal; (left) Nayan Padrai