The Tamil actor-director says Tamizharasan Pachamuthu has come to him with a strong script, even as he pushes ahead with his own directorial comeback, the pan-India thriller Killer.
SJ Suryah isn't slowing down, even after Sardar 2 bombed. The actor-director has told reporters his next acting assignment will be with Tamizharasan Pachamuthu, the man behind last year's cricket drama Lubber Pandhu, according to Filmibeat Tamil.
"Tamizharasan Pachamuthu has come with a good story," Suryah said, per the report, before turning, somewhat unexpectedly, to a compliment for Dhanush. "He's just won the National Award. People always welcome him. I admire him." It's not clear from his comments whether Dhanush has any role in this new project or whether Suryah was simply riffing on the actor's recent win in the same conversation.
What's certain is where Suryah stands right now. Sardar 2, where he played villain opposite Karthi, went down as a straight-up box office failure. Filmibeat Tamil notes Suryah gave it everything he had as a performer, but the screenplay didn't hold up, and the film sank without much of a fight.
That's a rare stumble in what's otherwise been a hot streak as a character villain. Maanaadu, Mark Antony and Jigarthanda 2 all landed as big hits, and Suryah built a real second career off the back of them, on top of acclaimed acting work in films like Iraivi. Sardar 2 was supposed to add to that run. Instead it's the one that didn't work.
The bigger story here, though, might be what's happening on the other side of the camera. Suryah made his name directing Vaali, Kushi and New before switching almost entirely to acting, and his last directorial credit is Isai, all the way back in 2015. Fans have wanted him behind the camera again for years, and now he's answering that, quietly, with a film called Killer.
Killer is shaping up as a thriller, and it's being made as a pan-India release, a scale Suryah hasn't attempted as a director before. A.R. Rahman is on board to score it, which alone has trade circles talking. After a decade-plus away from direction, the industry chatter, per Filmibeat Tamil, is that Suryah will bring his signature stamp to the film and catch audiences off guard with it.
So Suryah is effectively running two tracks at once right now. One is the acting career that's carried him through hit villain turns and one big miss in Sardar 2, with a new project alongside Tamizharasan Pachamuthu now on the table. The other is Killer, the comeback nobody quite knew when to expect, backed by Rahman's music and a pan-India rollout.
Neither project has a shooting schedule or release window attached yet. Given how long fans have waited for Suryah to direct again, that timeline is going to matter a lot more than the next thing he says in a press huddle.
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