Dhruva Sarja: My brief for Martin was to put on weight, bulk up and look like a beast

Dhruva Sarja has always been known to be a fitness freak, in great physical shape. In the 10 years since his debut, though, Dhruva has consistently been growing, not only in stature as a star, but also in terms of his physique, bulking up as per the requirements of the role he’s doing. If you thought Pogaru was the biggest he’s ever been seen onscreen, take a look at the Martin teaser that came out last evening. Dhruva is absolutely massive – and it’s all muscle mass.

The actor, who has lost much of this extra weight now and is at least 16-18 kilos lighter for his next, KD – The Devil with director Prem, spoke about the physical transformation he underwent for Martin at the teaser launch. “For this movie, AP Arjun insisted that I put on weight and I wanted to look like a beast, especially because I have action sequences with two UFC heavyweights, Nathan Jones and Neckzila. As part of my fitness regime, since I needed to add muscle mass, I began eating a lot more and changed up my workout routine to include heavy-duty weightlifting sessions. The focus was on strength training than cardio. It was actually quite easy to put on weight and gain mass,” he explains, adding, “I wanted to match their physique and look like a beast. Working with them was difficult, because they’d punch hard like in their matches, which hurt and they had to be reminded that this was only a movie.”

Martin, which had been earlier announced as a September 30 release, is likely to be in theatres in June-July this year. The film is being released in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi, making it Dhruva’s first pan-India outing. He is paired with Vaibhavi Shandilya in the film, which also stars Anveshi Jain, Achyuth Kumar, Nikitin Dheer and Malavika Avinash, among others.