Anant Nag to play BG Sankeshwar in the Kannada biopic, Vijayanand

Trunk fame director Rishika Sharma’s most-latest endeavour is the biopic of Padma Shri Vijay Sankeshwar, the self-made businessman who created the transport empire VRL Roadlines and multiple media outlets, starting with the Kannada daily Vijay Karnataka, then English daily The Vijay Times, both of which he sold to the Times Group, only to later launch another Kannada paper called Vijay Vani and the news channel Digvijay 24*7.

It has now been announced that film, which has Nihal Rajput in the title role, will have veteran actor Anant Nag play Vijay’s father, BG Sankeshwar. On Anant’s birthday, the team released a character introduction video of the actor in his look as senior Sankeshwar.

The biopic, we hear, will chronicle Vijay’s journey from owning a single truck to making it India’s largest logistics fleet, his tryst with running media houses and brief political outing as well. Produced by Vijay’s son, Anand Sankeshwar, as their VRL Film Productions’ maiden venture, the film has music by Gopi Sundar.

Nihal says that he, Rishika and creative head and editor Hemanth Kumar worked on the script of the film for two years before finally going on floors. The first look of Nihal as Vijay Sankeshwar was released for the latter’s birthday in early August, along with the biopic announcement. The team followed that up with a casting call for the film. Anant’s inclusion in the cast is the latest detail revealed by the makers. It would be interesting to see the rest of the cast, if the story includes Vijay’s days in politics, from being a BJP supporter and MP from the Dharwad region to launching his own party, Kannada Nadu Party.