Manoj Bajpayee is gearing up for the release of ‘Bhaiyyaji’, which marks a milestone achievement in his career. It would be his 100th project. In an exclusive interview with IndiaToday.In, Bajpayee shared insight on his career trajectory and credited ‘Satya’ for his growth. He also spoke about director Ram Gopal Varma, ‘Satya’ co-star Urmila Matondkar and the iconic film ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ with director Anurag Kashyap.
Speaking to us, Manoj Bajpayee said, “‘Satya’ is the film that has given me a career. I have lived that character for six months and the way that shaped up, we all know. But, if today I have completed 100 projects, it is only because of that one film ‘Satya’ which has helped me rise, given an opportunity to go ahead and accomplish everything I could. It has given me all that I have today. Post that, I always knew that every film will not be a ‘Satya’ but, at the same time, I had made up my mind that I would never do a villain’s role. I felt that villainous characters are not well-etched out in mainstream cinema.”
He continued, “Even though I was maintaining a distance from those kinds of roles, those were the only kind of offers that came my way back in the day. I was hoping I’d be offered different roles, but nothing of that sort happened. Both ‘Kaun’ and ‘Shool’ came to me after ‘Satya’, but from one man – Ram Gopal Varma. At that time, it was only Ram Gopal Varma who was showing a lot of conviction in me, but none of the directors or big producers from the industry had any idea of Manoj Bajpayee. It was because I neither looked like a cruel villain nor was I hero material. So, I really had to wait quite a lot in between the films.”
Adding to his equation with Ram Gopal Varma and Urmila Matondkar, Bajpayee called himself ‘lucky’ to have worked with them and stated, “Urmila was a very big star at that point of time. Her presence in the film guaranteed a certain budget. Ram, at that time, was changing the complete narrative of filmmaking. I only considered myself lucky when I got to work with both of them at the beginning of my career.”
Reminiscing his yet another iconic film, ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’, Manoj Bajpayee shared, “Anurag Kashyap and I had a fallout. We both had problems with each other until one fine evening, he called up and I landed at his office and he narrated me the whole film. The one thing which stayed with me is when he said that this is his commercial cinema and hence, I convinced him for his hero to do everything a conventional commercial cinema hero won’t do.”
Explaining about the subversion, he continued, “A conventional hero looks good and romances very well, but here we dismantled all of that and showed the audience Anurag Kashyap’s take on mainstream cinema. I shaved off my head and was nothing like a romantic commercial hero, but having that chat with my director really worked out well for us in shaping the character and bringing a new take of a mainstream lead hero. My biggest high is always the process when I’m preparing for a role and when people talk about my roles because there’s so much hard work that’s gone into it.”
‘Bhaiyyaji’ is all set to hit the theatres on May 24.
Source Agencies
