In April 2013, Vignesh Shivan, who had directed Podaa Podi (2012), announced that he was set to make his second film featuring music composer Anirudh Ravichander in the lead.
The project titled, Naanum Rowdy Dhaan, was described as an 'urban flick.' Samantha Akkineni was approached for playing the female lead.In a turn of events, Anirudh chose not to make an acting debut and the film was briefly shelved as the team looked for a replacement for the lead actor.The film was subsequently officially announced by Gautham Menon in Nov 2013, who revealed that he would produce the film and that they had signed on Gautham Karthik to feature as the lead.George Williams was signed as the cinematographer after being acclaimed for his work in Raja Rani, while Dilip Subbarayan was announced as the film's action director..Vignesh Shivan then revealed that the film would be based on a 19-year-old youngster caught in the midst of a gangster setting.Lavanya Tripathi was signed on to play the female lead role of a deaf girl and noted that she was impressed by Vignesh Shivan's narration of the script.However, the film failed to take off and Vignesh Shivan continued to discuss the film with different actors including Ashok Selvan, as he looked for a producer.In August 2014, oVinayagar Chathurthi, in another turn of events, Dhanush announced that he would be producing the film under his Wunderbar Films banner.While the principal technical crew was retained, the lead roles went to Vijay Sethupathi and Nayanthara, as both the actors had given dates to star in a Wunderbar Films production.NRD The film was shot in Puducherry and Chennai over a period of 75 days.Scenes were shot at the Thirukameeswarar Temple in Villianur, a famous temple town 9 km away from Pondicherry bus stand.[Director Vignesh Shivan revealed that Vijay Sethupathi had put on weight for some of his recent roles, so he worked hard for the past two months to shed those pounds.According to VJS, he worked out for 3 hours per day and went on an extensive diet regime as well – he even went without eating at times.All the songs of this film were written by the director Vignesh shivan.The dialogues were not written for the film. Only the plot was there, and everything else was improvised on the set.Title for the movie is borrowed from Vadivelu 's famous dialogue in the movie Thalai Nagaram (2006) where he pretends to be a goon and so does the protagonist of Naanum Rowdydhaan (2015).Nayanthara dubbed for her role for first time in her carrier.The little boy in the opening sequence, who's sitting inside jail the doing homework (the young VJS), is actually his real life son. The boy recently played a full-fledged role in Sindhubaadh.During the end credits, Pondy Pandi (Vijay Sethupathi) tries to convince Kadhambari (Nayanthara) that he would be better off accepting a job as Police Officer instead of 'remaining a rowdy'.As the scene fades, Pandi exclaims that he would look smart in a police uniform. Interestingly Vijay Sethupathi's next after Naanum Rowdy Dhaan was Sethupathi, in which he plays a police officer.Vignesh Shivan, who had worked with Dharan Kumar, on his debut film's soundtrack, chose to collaborate with Anirudh Ravichander for Naanum Rowdy Dhaan's music.The soundtrack features six tracks, with four of them also featuring Anirudh's voice; besides, Neeti Mohan, Benny Dayal, Sid Sriram and Sean Roldan.In one of the firsts, the songs of NRD were released separately as singles in late September and in the third quarter of 2015.Director Vignesh Shivan and Nayanthara fell in love during the shoot of NRD.The dialogue 'Naa Ungala Podanum Sir' uttered by Nayanthara to Parthiban was widely referenced in many movies. A film with such a title, starring Jithan Ramesh, also got released recently.NRD, made at a budget of 15 crores, made 55 crores worldwide at the box-office.In the UK, censorship cuts were made to violence for a '12A' rated release. The affected material removed detail of men being stabbed in the chest and sight of knives being withdrawn from bodies.The song 'Thangamey' has a lyric where Billa is mentioned and a poster of the Ajith-starrer can be seen.The film was dubbed into Telugu and released under the title, Nenu Rowdy Ne.A Telugu remake of the film, starring Raj Tarun and Hebah Patel, was planned, but eventually failed to take off.Anikha Surendran, who rose to fame playing Ajith's daughter in films like Yennai Arindhaal and Viswasam, played the younger Kadhambari in the film.Here are a few wallpaper-worthy stills, posters and newspaper-ads from the film...7p