Suriya's ‘no’ to Sinhala director

CHENNAI / COLOMBO: Kollywood actor Suriya on Thursday denied that he has been roped in to act, along with south Indian actress Simran, in a film directed by a Sinhalese, Suresh Kumarasinghe, and said that he had no idea that he was acting in any Sinhala movie.

“I am doing films only in Tamil and Hindi,” he told Express and that he had not been approached by any Sinhala filmmaker.

He said these days he was shooting only for Tamil film ‘Singam’ by director Hari.

In his statement, issued after Sri Lankan Tamil Protection Movement coordinator Pazha Nedumaran made an appeal to the actor to “reconsider” as the people of Tamil Nadu were “shocked” , Suriya said he, too, was “shocked”.

He said the news emanating from Colombo was wrong and gave a list of projects that he has been signed up for including a Hindi film by Ram Gopal Varma plus a film to be directed by A R Murugadoss.

But talking to Express in Colombo, Kumarasinghe said all plans were afoot for Suriya to act in the film and that Indian film director Balu Prakash was to come to Sri Lanka on November 5/6, but that he has postponed the visit to November 12 because there “might be some political problems”.

Kumarasinghe said if Suriya backed out, they would be on the lookout for another actor. Actress Simran, who was also named by the Sinhala director, quoted in the report, however, was not “reachable”.