While the release of her directorial film Emergency has been deferred, Kangana Ranaut has already moved on to her next project—a psychological thriller. This yet-untitled movie with R Madhavan reunites them after nine years since their hit film Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015). The film, which began shooting in Chennai last year, will resume filming this month. Ranaut had paused work to focus on directing Emergency, while Madhavan worked on Shaitaan, also starring Ajay Devgn. 

This pan-Indian film will be shot in both Tamil and Hindi. Although she remains tight-lipped about the details, Ranaut admits that the contemporary thriller is “unconventional in the performances, treatment, and style.” Directed by A L Vijay, the film’s music is composed by G V Prakash Kumar, with cinematography by Nirav Shah.

After Emergency, Ranaut plans to take a break from directing and concentrate on her acting projects. “The film industry is going through a big crisis, and many films are not getting the budgets they require. It is an intense job. I will take some time to come out and recover from that. But I have a lot of acting jobs,” explains the actor, who has Manoj Tapadia’s Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata and the mythological drama, Sita: The Incarnation, in the pipeline.

“Let’s see when Sita happens. I believe that everything has its own journey. I just want to go with the flow. I am at that place where I don’t want to prove anything to anybody.”

K V Vijayendra Prasad, who wrote the script for Sita: The Incarnation, was among the first to watch Emergency. Ranaut reveals that the writer became emotional after viewing the historical drama. She shares, “This film happened because of him. He helped me in writing [Emergency]. K V Vijayendra is my guru. When I wrote the screenplay, I got stuck in many places, as the film is layered. He helped me with my writer’s blocks. The first frame of Emergency offers a special gratitude to him.”

She also mentions that the film has taken a financial toll on her. Reports suggest that she sold her Mumbai bungalow for R32 crore due to the financial strain caused by the delay in Emergency. “I wanted to make a sincere film. It is more our history than a biopic. Emergency is a political thriller about what happened in 1975,” she smiles.