Working in Pushpa was akin to doing four films, says Allu Arjun

Actor Allu Arjun on Tuesday said that working in his upcoming Telugu film Pushpa was akin to doing four films. Talking about the scale of the project, he said that the effort that has gone into its making is unparalleled.

Pushpa will be released in cinemas on Friday. Originally made in Telugu, the movie has been dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.

Speaking at the pre-release event in Chennai, Allu Arjun spoke about the experience of shooting for the movie in the forests abutting the borders of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh for nearly 200 days. 

“Pushpa marks my reunion with director Sukumar after a decade. Over the years, I’ve asked him many times about collaborating, but he was very particular about doing a project that’ll match the expectations of our combination. That’s how Pushpa was born, and it’s one of the most challenging projects of my career,” the actor said. 

In Pushpa, Allu Arjun plays a lorry driver who smuggles red sandalwood. The film also stars Fahadh Faasil and Rashmika Mandanna. 

The actor added, “It’s a film that has been entirely shot in the forests. It was completely shot outdoors, and we had to shoot during peak COVID times. At one point, many of us tested positive while shooting, and we had to cancel that schedule. But we came back to the sets after a couple of months and reshot most portions. The scale of the film is such that it felt like doing four films.” 

“Since we did a major part of the shooting during the second COVID wave, we had to follow strict protocols on the sets. We weren’t allowed to have more than three people travel in a car to the location. This meant we had to have over 400 cars on location during the shoot. Shooting in the forest meant we had to rely on the natural light, but it would get dark by 4.30 on most evenings. Therefore, we had to plan our shoot, which meant I had to be on set much earlier because my hair and makeup would take two hours. We had so many challenges to deal with,” the actor said.

Allu Arjun said he waited for the right story to go pan-India. "The story takes place in the forests of Tirupati which is the border of Andhra and Tamil Nadu. We felt it’d make sense to release it in Tamil too. Eventually, the plan to put out the film in other languages as well fell into place,” he said. 

Produced by Mythri Movie Makers, the film features music by Devi Sri Prasad. It features Fahadh Faasil as the antagonist.