31 Facts About Selvaraghavan

Selvaraghavan is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and actor who has directed and acted predominantly Tamil films and few Telugu films.

Selvaraghavan has ventured into making science fiction and fantasy films, such as depicting a fantasy Chola kingdom in Aayirathil Oruvan and a parallel universe in Irandam Ulagam.

Selvaraghavan made his film acting debut in the 2022 film Beast.

Selvaraghavan was born to Telugu-speaking film director Kasthuri Raja and Vijayalakshmi.

Selvaraghavan has a brother, Dhanush, who is an actor, and two sisters, who are both doctors.

Selvaraghavan's family faced financial pressures in the early 2000s with his father being out of work, and subsequently they decided to put their remaining earnings into a venture titled Thulluvadho Ilamai, which Selvaraghavan had written.

Selvaraghavan had written the script for the film in the late 1990s and had first narrated the story to Dhanush in their shared bedroom at home, before asking him to play the lead role of Vinod after the success of Thulluvadho Illamai.

Since its release, the film has been remade into several Indian languages, while Selvaraghavan was briefly associated with the Hindi remake to be produced by Boney Kapoor in 2004, but the project did not eventually materialise.

Selvaraghavan revealed that the film's inspiration came from his college days when he had been fascinated with a Punjabi girl called Ruchika, during his education in KK Nagar.

Selvaraghavan cast Ravi Krishna, son of the film's producer AM Rathnam, in the leading role after a successful screen test while choosing to retain Sonia Agarwal as the lead actress, due to her Punjabi origin.

Selvaraghavan later committed to begin work on a Hindi version of the film starring Vivek Oberoi in 2007, but the venture subsequently did not materialise.

Selvaraghavan later tried to make the film during 2005 with Vijay in the lead role for producer Ramesh Babu, with the producer again bringing up legal proceedings in late 2016 about the failure to return an advance.

Selvaraghavan then moved on to direct a Telugu film which he had committed to make since 2003 with Venkatesh in the leading role.

In July 2007, Selvaraghavan announced a new film with Karthi and Reemma Sen in the cast, with Ramji replacing regular Arvind Krishna as the cinematographer.

Selvaraghavan was praised by the reviewer with claims that "the director transports us to a whole new world and at the end of it all, we are dumb stuck by the visuals, the packaging and the new way of storytelling".

Selvaraghavan then relaunched his marital drama film Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam in November 2008 and filming started with a new cast of Dhanush and Andrea Jeremiah in the leading roles.

In early 2011, Kamal Haasan agreed terms with Selvaraghavan to be the director of the actor's venture Vishwaroopam.

Selvaraghavan later noted that he expected creative control of the project, which Kamal Haasan was unwilling to offer him.

However, the film subsequently ran into trouble after Andrea Jeremiah pulled out of the film, citing differences with the director, and Selvaraghavan chose to shelve the project and begin a new film instead featuring Dhanush and Richa Gangopadhyay.

Selvaraghavan revealed that he drew instances from his and Dhanush's lives and adapted the screenplay to make it applicable to "gen-next" audiences.

Selvaraghavan then chose to restart work on Irandam Ulagam in September 2011, with a new cast of Arya and Anushka Shetty and began shooting for the film again from the start.

The Times of India gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote: "The disjointed way in which the scenes play out in this world at times makes one wonder if we are seeing the film version of a feverish dream Selvaraghavan might have had".

In December 2013, Selvaraghavan began pre-production on a new venture titled Alaivarisai, produced by Varun Manian, which would feature Silambarasan and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles.

The film was put on hold in May 2014, with Manian announcing that Selvaraghavan had to sort out issues with his previous producers PVP Cinemas, before beginning work on the venture.

In February 2015, Selvaraghavan announced that he would begin work on the film again with immediate effect and that the project would have new producers in the form of Selvaraghavan's wife Gitanjali and Siddharth Rao.

The film progressed and by July 2015, Selvaraghavan revealed that the film was scheduled to release by December 2015 and that the producers had planned an international version.

Selvaraghavan subsequently began pre-production work on another venture featuring Suriya, Rakul Preet Singh and Sai Pallavi.

Selvaraghavan made his debut, as an actor, with Vijay's Beast, directed by Nelson Dilipkumar.

Selvaraghavan then followed it up with Saani Kaayidham, co-starring Keerthy Suresh and directed by Arun Matheswaran, of Rocky fame.

Selvaraghavan has announced the sequel to Aayirathil Oruvan, with Dhanush, as the main lead.

Selvaraghavan has been involved in the pre-production for it, since 2021.