Aishwarya Lekshmi begins shooting for Mammootty’s thriller, Amala Paul to join in September

Director B Unnikrishnan seems to have pulled a casting coup of sorts for his thriller that has Mammootty in the lead. The movie, which has the megastar playing the role of a senior cop, has three heroines and now the latest to begin shooting the film is Aishwarya Lekshmi.

The Archana 31 Not Out actress joined the team in Ernakulam on Wednesday and will be shooting her portions for the next few days. Aishwarya, who was last seen in Sai Pallavi’s Gargi, is also part of Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan and has wrapped up the shoot of Kumar, which is helmed by Ranam director Nirmal Sahadev.

Mammootty, who was part of the current schedule since its start last month, will take a break from the film from Thursday as he is gearing up for Ranjith’s Kadugannawa Oru Yathra segment from the upcoming Netflix anthology. The megastar will be shooting for the featurette, which marks his second direct-to-OTT project after Sony LIV’s Puzhu earlier this year, for most part of the August with the movie having locations in Ottapalam, Kerala, and Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, Sneha, who is also part of Mammootty’s investigative thriller that is scripted by Pulimurugan and Aaraattu writer Udaykrishna, had wrapped up her portions earlier this month. The third lead actress in the film is Amala Paul, who will reportedly be joining the team in its second schedule in September.

Amala’s next release Cadaver is set to stream on Disney+ Hotstar from August 12. The movie, which is directed by Anoop Panicker and scripted by Night Driver and Pathaam Valavu writer Abhilash Pillai, has the actress playing a forensic surgeon. She has also completed shooting for Athiran director Vivek’s The Teacher, which is written by PV Shajikumar. The movie also has Chemban Vinod Jose and Hakkim Shajahan as part of the cast.