Aishwarya Lekshmi to play the female lead in Mammootty and Dulquer Salmaan’s upcoming movies?

Aishwarya Lekshmi is set to star with Mammootty and Dulquer Salmaan for the first time in her career. The actress will reportedly play the female lead in director B Unnikrishnan’s thriller, which has Mammootty essaying the role of a cop, and is also roped in to star in Abhilash’s Joshiy’s King of Kotha, which is a gangster thriller.

Both movies are big budget projects, which have a host of stars as part of the cast. Unnikrishnan’s untitled film is currently being shot in Kothamangalam, Ernakulam. The movie, scripted by Pulimurugan scribe Udaykrishna, also has Amala Paul and Sneha as part of the cast. Dileesh Pothan, Shine Tom Chacko, Jinu Joseph and Tamil star Vinay Rai also play pivotal roles in the movie, which is expected to wrap up shooting by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, King of Kotha, which is scripted by Porinju Mariyam Joseph writer Abhilash N Chandran, is set to go on floors by September. The movie, which is planned to be mounted on a scale similar to Dulquer’s Kurup, will be shot in Mangalore, Goa and Chennai, apart from its Kerala schedules. Nimish Ravi, who was the cinematographer for Kurup, will be cranking the camera for King of Kotha as well.

Meanwhile, Aishwarya, whose previous Malayalam release was Archana 31 Not Out, was also part of Sai Pallavi’s Gargi. The Tamil-Telugu-Kannada trilingual also marked her debut production venture. The actress has also completed shooting for the period fantasy thriller Kumar in Malayalam and is awaiting the release of Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan. She plays the character of Poonguzhali in the filmmaker’s magnum opus, which is set to hit theatres on September 30.

She is also part of Arya’s sci-fi actioner Captain, which is set to release on September 8. The film also has Simran, Kavya Shetty and Harish Uthaman in pivotal roles.