Actor Vishal Funny Conversation Chief Minister Vijay Magudam Song Launch

Two years ago, actor Vishal walked into a room hoping to cast Vijay in a film. The actor never signed on, but at the launch of Magudam’s second single, Vishal revealed he’d finally found a use for that old meeting anyway, as a running joke about his friend’s unexpected career change.

“He’s the same Vijay I met two years ago; two years back, I came to this very place to narrate a story to him. I went to that same Vijay, I call him Vijay, now he’s the Chief Minister, and asked, ‘Do you remember last time when I came asking for an appointment to narrate a story to you?’ He said, ‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ I told him, ‘Since you’re not in cinema anymore, I’m going to use your name,’ and Vijay laughed at that,” Vishal said, drawing laughs of his own from the audience.

The anecdote was part of a longer story Vishal told about his bond with Vijay, one he said stretches back 30 years to their college days. “I’ve known the CM for the past 30 years, ever since his first film. He studied with my brother in college, and I’ve been meeting him since then. Even after he became Chief Minister, when I went to meet him, there was no change in him at all, the same person, the same body language, the same good qualities; only the position has changed,” he said.

He went on to describe the warmth of a more recent meeting in personal terms. “When I spoke to Vijay, I said ‘Sorry, darling’; think about how wonderful it is to call a Chief Minister ‘darling’; it felt just like talking to a friend, and that atmosphere was so beautiful,” Vishal said.

He also spoke about a gesture he made at that meeting in place of the customary bouquet. “Instead of giving him a bouquet, I told him, ‘I’ll educate three children in your name’; he was overjoyed and agreed to it. It’s true that by not giving the Chief Minister a bouquet, I broke with tradition, but he wholeheartedly accepted it, that’s not my generosity, it’s his generosity in accepting it. I’m happy because he agreed; if he hadn’t accepted it, this wouldn’t have happened,” he said, adding that the three girl children would now study in Vijay’s name for the next three years.”

At that meeting, Vishal had declined to present the traditional bouquet and shawl after Vijay himself asked attendees to skip them, choosing instead to direct the money toward sponsoring the education of three underprivileged girls in Tamil Nadu in the Chief Minister’s name. He had also written a detailed note on social media at the time, addressing Vijay as his ‘dearest darling’ and tracing their bond back to their days as students at Loyola College, where Vishal said Vijay had studied alongside his brother.

The latest comments came at the launch event for ‘Nachindi Machaane,’ the second single from Magudam, Vishal’s upcoming Tamil-Telugu bilingual action drama, which also marks his directorial debut. Backed by R.B. Choudary’s Super Good Films and scored by G.V. Prakash Kumar, the film stars Vishal alongside Anjali, Dushara Vijayan and John Vijay, and is currently gearing up for a theatrical release expected later this year.