Thalapathy Vijay’s Bigil is one of the biggest blockbuster hits of last year that managed to collect over 300 crores at the box office. Produced by AGS Entertainment and directed by Atlee, Bigil also featured Nayanthara, Jackie Shroff, Kathir, Vivekh, Yogi Babu, Indhuja, Amritha Aiyer, Reba Monica John, Varsha Bollamma in important roles. The film had music by A.R.Rahman and cinematography by G.K.Vishnu. Vijay was seen in dual roles, as a father and son - Rayappan and Michael (aka) Bigil. Vijay’s makeover as an aging don was interesting and the character, Rayappan turned out to be one of the most favourite takeaways for the fans who enjoyed his scenes in the theatre. A certain section of fans even requested Atlee to write a story that explored the beginning stages of Rayappan and his journey of becoming a don. Will that happen in the future? Well, we will have to wait for a few more years for that.

However, there is an interesting new information that we thought of sharing with our readers. How many of us know that late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and his makeover for the film Chhichhore was the initial inspiration for the makers of Bigil to decide Vijay can play the role of Rayappan? Interesting, right? Bigil's creative producer, Archana Kalpathi shared this information in her recent interview to a popular Tamil media house. She was quoted as saying, “After watching the film, everyone in the team, including Vijay sir, unanimously liked Rayappan’s character. When all of us heard the story for the first time, we never knew or thought about Vijay sir playing that character. We thought of approaching some senior actors to play that character, but no one came close to our imaginations.

During that time, we had met a cosmetologist from Mumbai, called Preethi Shree and she showed us the pictures of Sushant Singh Rajput’s two different looks (younger and older versions) from the film Chhichhore. That is when we thought of asking Vijay sir to play both the roles. We immediately conducted look tests for Rayappan character and Vijay sir looked wonderful. Since Vijay sir hasn’t acted in aging characters like this before, it was fresh and new for us.”

Well, talking about Chhichhore, it was Sushant Singh Rajput’s last release in the theatre and it featured him playing his character in two different time frames, during his teenage and later, as a father who helps his son to look at life in a positive way. The film, which was directed by Nitesh Tiwari of Dangal fame, earned positive reviews and became a successful venture at the box office. For one last time, Sushant Singh Rajput will be seen in the film Dil Bechara, which is scheduled to release directly on Disney + Hotstar platform on July 24.