Teja Sajja says he loves homegrown superhero films like ‘Koi Mil Gaya’, ‘Minnal Murali’

MUMBAI: Actor Teja Sajja, who has been getting a lot of good response to his recently released film ‘HanuMan’, has shared that his favourite homegrown superhero films are ‘Koi Mil Gaya’, it’s sequel ‘Krrish’ and the Malayalam film ‘Minnal Murali’.

The actor recently spoke with IANS about his film, the space that the Indian cinema is currently in given the unification of different film industries across India and what growing up with cinema feels like to an actor who has been a part of the industry since their childhood.

Teja said that he is a “huge fan of ‘Koi Mil Gaya’”. He may not have watched many superheroes from international cinema but he takes immense pride in the homegrown superheroes.

He told IANS: “I've not watched many English superhero films. Marvel and DC never clicked with me because of the lack of cultural understanding. But I love ‘Koi Mil Gaya’. I love ‘Minnal Murali’ also. The other day I was in Kochi talking about ‘Minnal Murali’. Tovino Thomas sir was also there, he said he also knew about ‘HanuMan’ and he wants to do something for ‘HanuMan’. I hope we can do something together.”

Talking about the unified force that Indian cinema has become with the lines between different film industries in India blurring, the actor said that best is yet to come for Indian cinema.

“We are always better than yesterday. Tomorrow will be brighter and better. That is what we aspire for. It has just begun. The biggest example is Shah Rukh Khan sir collaborating with Atlee sir, and Prabhas sir collaborating with Prashanth Neel sir from Karnataka. They collaborated with Prithviraj Sukumaran sir from Malayalam as well.”

“We have to give huge respect to both stars, Prithviraj sir in Malayalam, is a huge star. Prabhas sir, who is a huge star himself. There's ‘Kalki’ coming up and ‘Thalaivar 170’. These are the kinds of collaborations that we are trying to launch because there are no more boundaries of languages, no more boundaries of cultures. It is just Indian cinema against the world cinema. That is an aspiration to dream about.”

Teja has been in Telugu cinema since he was 2 years old. When asked what it feels like to grow up in cinema, he told IANS: “I had great fun. One thing is, you start rubbing your shoulders with people much older than you. If you're working in cinema at a very young age that gives you a lot of exposure to real life. When you are working in cinema, when you are giving out your dialogues, you keep understanding at a very young age what they are talking about or what I am talking about. Nowadays it is a little natural and realistic, but in the old days, even small kids, 4- 5-year-old kids used to mouth dialogues that were too huge and over the top.”

“So, that kind of awareness you get from a very young age, which helps you in the later stages of your life because you'll be more mature and you'll make fewer mistakes. I think that is the advantage but there are many disadvantages too like we lose our childhood, we'll not have many friends. Even though we are one of the most influential industries across the world, cinema as a medium, people still look down upon us. This happened to me when I was a child. There is a bit of discrimination towards people who act in films.”

“I don't understand this. It's uncalled for. In the end, we are just entertaining the audience. That is a different aspect. Even if you look down upon a field entirely, then that doesn't make sense. I was a child artist back then when I faced something like this, it was quite an eye-opener for me.”