Roja walked into the pre-release event for "Lenin Pandiyan" and told the room her comeback story before anyone asked. The actress, who stepped back from acting after entering politics, says the film marks her real re-entry to Tamil cinema, and that she watched the entire movie play out in her head the moment the director narrated it to her.

She was speaking at the event for "Lenin Pandiyan," in which she stars alongside Gangai Amaran. Her last screen credit was a character role in "Anbe Diana." Before that, long gaps. Roja married director R.K. Selvamani and built a parallel career in politics that, by her own account, pulled her away from film sets for years, with only the occasional public appearance keeping her connected to the industry, according to Filmibeat Tamil.

"35 years" and a full-circle score

Roja called her first film, "Semparuthi," the start of a journey she says she's only now measuring properly. "When you say it's been a 35-year journey, it makes me wonder if I really crossed such a long road so easily," she said, according to Filmibeat Tamil. "I've travelled through cinema and politics without anyone's backing. Thank god for that."

There's a musical bookend to the story too. Ilaiyaraaja scored her debut. He's composed for "Lenin Pandiyan" as well, and Roja said that alone made this comeback feel right.

The friend who talked her back in

Roja credited a long-time friend she referred to only as Subbu for pulling her back onto a film set. She said she'd effectively stopped acting after politics took over, showing up at events now and then but nothing more. Subbu told her the story of "Lenin Pandiyan," and when the director came to her house to narrate it, she says she saw the finished film before a single shot was canned. What sold her, she said, was how precisely he described every character's dialogue and body language.

Three generations of one family

Roja pointed out that "Lenin Pandiyan" completes a run through three generations of the Sivaji Ganesan family. She's worked with Sivaji Ganesan himself, then his son Prabhu, and now with Dharshan. She said all three treated her like family on set, right down to home-cooked meals through the shoot, and that the same warmth carried into this film.

Her verdict on the film itself leaned on comparison rather than plot detail. She said watching "Lenin Pandiyan" left her with the feeling she gets walking out of a Bharathiraja film, and that nobody on set carried themselves like they were owed anything for coming from a famous film family.

No release date for "Lenin Pandiyan" has been announced yet, though the pre-release event suggests theatres aren't far off.