No Priyanka for Priyan. Not Priyanka Chopra or any of the names being tossed about. Finally it's the old Priyan favourite Sameera Reddy who will be performing the sizzling item song for Priyadarshan in his thriller Tezz.

Sameera, no stranger to Priyan's cinema, is a close family friend. She and Priyan's wife Lizzie are best friends and whenever Sameera shoots a Tamil film in Chennai she stays with Priyan and his wife.

With such proximity is it any wonder that the Tezz sizzler has finally gone to Sameera when apparently a lot of the screen queens were keen to perform to the peppy Sajid-Wajid number.

Priyan just back from a longish holiday abroad, is quick to defend the number as belonging to Sameera. "How can anyone else dance to that number? Sameera plays a club dancer in Tezz and the number rightly belongs her. "

Incidentally Sameera had also performed an item song in Priyadarshan's Aakrosh last year.

The song in Tezz will be shot in Mumbai later this month. Currently Priyan is in Kerala, as he has just been appointed the chairperson of the Kerala Chalchitra Academy.

Priyan is naturally very proud of the appointment. "My predecessor was Adoor Gopalkrishnan. So I follow in honorable footsteps. Kerala is a very cinema-literate state. Running the academy and organizing the Kerala Film Festival is a big challenge for me. I'm looking forward to it. "

Priyan returned to India to the shocking news that the actress Rasika Johsi had died. Says the director, "She was my female Paresh Rawal. My favourite female actor. She did four films with me. I wish we had worked together in 40 more. "