The recent superhero film Hanuman took everyone by surprise with its long legs at the box office. Made on a budget of Rs. 40 crore, it managed to rake in over Rs. 200 crore, along with praise for its use of VFX. And Teja Sajja, who plays the lead, says a lot of sacrifice went into achieving this.

In the two-and-a-half years that it took for the film to be completed, Sajja didn’t take up other projects. “There were many opportunities I rejected; about 70-75 that came my way in this journey. At least 15 would have been considerably decent projects. But, I was always committed to Hanuman,” he shares.

Moreover, the budget constraint was a constant battle to tackle: “Once we started shooting, it was a very strenuous process for the action sequences. There are no head replacement shots, like [there are] in big budget films. Every stunt in the film was performed by me, even the underwater sequences. We didn’t have the budget, so I learnt scuba diving. We figured other ways to do crane shots.”

But, all that effort paid off and how. “After the first few premieres in Hyderabad itself, I saw an overwhelming response and didn’t even look at the box-office after that. Ultimately, numbers translate into the number of people who watched the film, so I am more happy about that,” he ends.