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You have acquired quite a degree of prominence via OTT in the phase when halls were closed and big-budget movies were on hold. But you haven’t used that to work with a big studio – you are instead working with a number of filmmakers who are, for want of a better word, non-mainstream. Stardom nahi chahiye aapko?
Star
kaun hota hai hamare yahan?
Dekhiye, star
toh wohi banega,
jo exhibitor
aur distributor
ki requirements
ko puri karta ho.
Woh requirement
kya hai? Requirement
hai: Larger Than Life. Extravaganza. Pushpa
ne uss gap
ko fill
kiya, RRR
ne kiya.
I had a resolve that I will attach myself with either the middle of the road cinema or with the independent cinema, and I am sticking to that. It is also about empowering all these filmmakers so that not only do I get to play those roles that I always wanted to play, work with scripts that I always wanted to be part of, but also, in that process, some very talented people are being empowered.
And today one can take these decisions because of OTT.
Kyunki agar woh (film) theatre
mein nahi aayegi toh woh OTT
pe aa jayegi.
When I work with Rahul Chittella (for Gulmohar), it gives me immense joy not only to play the character that I am playing, and be part of the film, which I am so proud of, but also I see a fantastic director-writer coming into the film world.
Isiliye mere liye Rahul Chittella, Devashish Makhija, Kanu Behl, Dipesh Jain,
ya phir Abhishek Chaubey, Ram Reddy – all of these directors have become very important for me.
Mere liye bahut important
baat hai.
Main yeh nahi keh raha hoon ki industry
ka har actor
woh kare jo main kar raha hoon. Nahi, lekin woh mera resolve
hai. I have been following this without even talking about it. But now I have to say this. I have to tell people what I am doing and why I am doing it.
Inki filmein
karte hue mujhe badi aantrik santushti hoti hai.
Independent cinema means smaller pay cheques for the actors, right?
That is true.
Inke saath jab main kaam karta hoon toh mujhe apni bhi bahut saari sahuliyaton ko –
jo dimag mein hai ki bhai yeh sahuliyat honi chahiye,
ki itne saal ho gaye mujhe kaam karte hue, mujhe luxury
chahiye –
uss luxury
ko mujhe cut down
karna parta hai. Which is very good!
You are chasing the creative element over material luxury, or is this some sort of personal CSR, that you have to give back to the
industry?
This is a responsibility that I have taken upon myself. I do things in a personal capacity, where I feel I have to give back, but I don’t talk about it. Many of us in the industry do what we can, where we can, but we keep it to ourselves.
Secondly,
har actor
ki yeh journey
hai.
Jahan bhi woh pahuncha hai uske liye bahut tyag karna pada hai.
Maa-baap ka tyag karna pada hai, bhai-behen ka tyag karna pada hai, apne comfort
ka tyag karna pada hai, apne ghar ka tyag karna pada hai.
Woh kai raat rota-rota soya hai, bhookha toh chhor hi dijiye.
Har actor – actor as opposed to star?
Even stars. There are stars who have become so huge in our industry who have come from middle-class families. They have sacrificed so much before they have become what they’ve become.
Lekin jab woh ban gaya hai toh (
log)
kehte hai samaj ke liye kuch kyun nahi kar rahe ho?
Samaj ke liye karna na karna uska apna chunav ho sakta hai.
Hum uss ke upar dabav nahi daal sakte hain.
Kya yeh dabav hum corporates
pe daalte hain?
Kya hum unke accountable
hone ke liye unke ghar ke bahar pradarshan karte hain? N
ahi karte hain.
Kyunki wahan par pradarshan kar ke humein kuch nahi milne wala evaj mein.
Jab
main Twitter
pe ek star
ko gaali deta hoon,
toh uske evaj mein bahut kuch mil jata hai.
Ek pehchan milti hai –
ek identity. (Pauses) We have always been looking for identity – for heroes. Unfortunately, we found our heroes in film stars. But they could not be. They cannot be. They are entertainers. They are actors.
This resolve to work with the names you have spoken of – is this purely on the basis of how good a filmmaker they are or is this because somewhere in your mind you are saying let me act as a bridge or let me use my stronger presence in box office because now I’m a name with a stature there, so let me bring this greater aura to their movies?
The intention comes from two-three things. I have always been looking for subjects that are genre-bending or stories which are not told or filmmaking that is not very familiar to our audience. These are my personal interests. When I watch a film say by Inarritu (Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu), it is a very new way of storytelling and I want to be a part of it. Where and how can I be a part of it? Definitely, Inarritu doesn’t know me. He is not going to cast me. So I have to find my own filmmakers here, whose films or storytelling I can be a part of. And yes, my own professional credibility will empower them to take the film forward.
Why is this space more interesting for you than conventional, mainstream Bollywood?
Had I chosen, say, only mainstream format, or maybe gotten a place as a celebrated villain, then I would have been finished long back, because even heroes look for new villains after five years. I would have been used, abused, and thrown away. Maybe because I wanted to do things differently, in my own way, so that I could be relevant, these filmmakers came to my mind as a rescue or as an alternative to really keep me going, keep my interest in filmmaking and acting going. And I’m still as interested. I am still as interested and enthusiastic and as angry as ever. That anger is only towards making these films possible for my own self and for the audience. I am really seeing to it that they get a platform and medium where they can showcase their work. Purely that.
Now, from Delhi, I have to go to Jharkhand where Devashish Makhija and the unit is waiting for me (for Joram). They want a certain kind of discipline from Manoj Bajpayee and they are not going to compromise on that. And I am not ready to compromise on my effort either. So everything is back-breaking, knee-breaking.
In 2012, Gangs Of Wasseypur in mainstream cinema and in 2021, Family Man on OTT – they seem to be the projects that gave you the comfort to do things on our own terms, to be able to pick and choose, right? When you get a hit in the industry, it gives you the space for a while to make your choices.
You said it. You just nailed it. You know, one Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012), one Rajneeti (2010), and then Special 26 (2013) has given me so much strength to do Aligarh (2016), Bhonsle (2018) and Gali Guleiyan (2018) and so many others… If I do Aligarh or Bhonsle, for me it is self-satisfying. I sleep very peacefully after doing it. And then Family Man has given me choices that I never had till now.
That’s how I tried to maneuver my career. I always needed one project which could empower me, give me that strength to go ahead and be a part of these filmmakers’ vision which could help me to reinvent myself, and rekindle my energy. It’s all mutual when I am doing these films. For my next scene (as he was at a set) I’m ready to go, I’m all prepared. I’m ready to go. Everything is prepared. But having said that I must tell you that I am not a genre-specific person. After five-six films, you may see me in a complete mainstream film doing all sorts of stuff because it has attracted me, not the genre but the matter, the film as such or the passion of the director.
So you are saying that you’re not taking high moral ground ki mainstream nahi karna hai. But you are saying that I don’t need to be seen in mainstream for my inner satisfaction. If it works, it works, if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work.
If it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. I have done Baaghi 2 and Satyamev Jayate. I have done many films in the past, so the filmography itself says that I have done those films. I have never regretted, rather I have enjoyed because I don’t judge them. Because for me cinema is far more important. Films are important.
(Pauses)
Itni blockbuster
ho rahi hai (from the south)… forget about Manoj Bajpayee and the likes of me for a minute, it has sent a shiver down the spine of all the mainstream filmmakers from the Mumbai film industry. They really don’t know where to look.
The south industry is shaking up Mumbai?
Yes! I have been part of Tamil films and Telugu films. I exactly know why this is happening.
Educate us. One reads so much about actors saying ‘the culture’ is different in making South films but one doesn’t get the specifics.
Kya culture hai, koi samjhata nahi.
Koi nahi samjhaega aap ko kyunki apne aap ko
criticise karna padega.
Maine kaam kiya hai wahan pe. They are unapologetic, they are passionate, and every shot they take as if they are taking the best shot in the world. And so much thought and passion goes into it. Not even once do they talk about the audience in a demeaning way. They don’t say that the audience will understand. ‘
Yeh massy
hai,
yeh chal jayega’ – they never talk in this language. They shoot a film as they have envisioned it, they don’t dumb it down for the audience because they hold their audience in the highest regard and their passion is supreme. If you see Pushpa or RRR or KGF, the making of it – it is immaculate. Each and every frame is actually shot in a manner as if it were a life and death situation. This is what we lack. We started thinking about mainstream films only in terms of money and box office.
Hum criticise
nahi kar sakte na apne aap ko. So
hum
unko ‘different’
keh kar alag kar denge.
But it’s a lesson. This is a lesson for Mumbai industry mainstream filmmakers on how to make mainstream cinema.
As an observer, what you seem to be arguing broadly is that if somebody is looking for cinematic satisfaction as a viewer, he’s saying maybe OTT is giving me better choices. As an actor across all genres, you are doing half a dozen films outside of ‘mainstream’ Bollywood saying that is giving me more satisfaction and more space, and it excites me more. So your excitement quotient is not being met by the mainstream, at least at this moment in this space. But on the other hand, when it comes to the larger-than-life scale – then the south is doing better than Bollywood. Right?
I will tell you one thing – do you know that Ram Charan and Junior NTR and Allu Arjun and Pawan Kalyan were already stars in the B, C cities before their recent films became big hits. Their older films were already being watched in a dubbed version in all the interior places. Those were the films which were actually satisfying the B, C cities of this country. But we were satisfied with the multiplexes and popcorn films thinking that we are making the best mainstream cinema which is reaching everyone. No, it was not reaching everyone. That section – the audience of the smaller cities, the single screens – was really not entertained. They (mainstream Bollywood) stopped addressing those viewers. When multiplexes become very expensive and far away from their (audiences’) reach, then who is their star? Who is entertaining them all this while? For you, as a person who buys a ticket in a multiplex in Delhi, when you see RRR, Junior NTR is someone you have seen for the first time – but not for the viewers in the B, C cities. They have already seen him.
Someone told me before RRR’s release – “
Bhaiyya,
aap Junior NTR aur Ram Charan
ko le kar chale jaiye Haryana
ke kisi gaon mein,
woh aaj bhi mob
ho jayenge.
Aap ka (Bollywood) superstar
wahan mob
nahi hoga kyunki woh audience
unki filmein nahi dekhte hain.
Woh inki filmein dekhte hai, dubbed version.”
That’s because Hindi cinema wasn’t giving them this content?
Upper middle class
ko jab hero mila, aur multiplex
bhi usi waqt aaye,
uske baad humne ye space
miss kar diya.
Lekin multiplex
mein
jana
sabke bas ki baat rahi nahi.
Ab Zanjeer, Naseeb, Khalnayak kahan banti hai? Ya Vishwanath? Kalicharan? Hamari upper middle class ka hero NRI ban gaya tha. Upper middle class
ka aspiration
woh
raha.
The successful huge megastars that we have created – they were not megastars of B, C cities.
‘The message was to spread harmony when we first shot Bhagwan Aur Khuda two years back’
Recently, a two-year old video (Bhagwan Aur Khuda) of Manoj reciting a poem on harmony between religions has been circulating. He tells us, “This video was made during the lockdown. I was in Uttarakhand and Milap (Zaveri, film writer and director) wrote this poem and sent this to me, asking me to recite it.
Mujhe poems recite
karna waise bhi achcha lagta hai, and I really liked what he wrote, so I recorded it and sent it back to him. He then called me to say
ki isko shoot
kar ke bhej do agar wahan koi assistants
hain jo mere saath phanse hue hain. It so happened that two assistant directors were there, stuck along with me, Sagar and Ashok. So we spent some time and shot it together.”
He reminds us that he also shot for another video during the first lockdown – Bambai Me Ka Ba for Anubhav Sinha.
While it was initially posted online two years ago, it’s been seen more recently than it probably was then. “
Jab uss samay daala tha tab bhi kaafi chala tha,
lekin iss samay jis tarah se iss ka swagat ho raha hai woh unprecedented
hai,” says Manoj, adding, “
Mera apna maanna hai ki Bharat
ko aage jaana hai toh sab ko saath mil ke chalna hoga. The message was to spread peace and harmony when we first shot this two years back. I am of course surprised that it has gone viral at this point. But as to why, perhaps the simplest answer is in what one of my co-actors messaged me: It was relevant then, it is relevant now, and it will always be relevant.”
‘I deleted Whatsapp to stop expectations’
While reaching out to Manoj for this interaction, we realised that our WhatsApp messages to him weren’t landing. The actor subsequently clarified that it was on account of him having deleted the app. “WhatsApp
pe bahut saare known, unknown messages
aate hain, everyone expecting you to respond to them quickly. There are invitation to all kinds of functions and then people expect you to respond in a positive manner. There are so many forwards – many of which are not in sync with my sensibilities – spams, unknown numbers and bulk messages coming in every day, unknown calls coming every day. It’s humanly not possible for any of us to entertain each and every message and answer them in positive. And your answer should match their expectation, which was getting a little too much. I also wanted to just keep a lot of time for my reading, for watching content and spending time with my family rather than just being stuck on the phone and being busy answering people. So I think it was just very, very important for me to delete it so that the expectations stop.”
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