Manoj Bajpayee at Idea Exchange: ‘Real stardom lasted only till the time technology became big. But one thing that will always survive is the story’

Sometimes it feels like a dream that I have come this far. My formative years were spent in Delhi, going to Delhi University, and then theatre days in Delhi. Life has been about learning and unlearning many things because of the setup I came from. Learning the ways of the metropolis was also part of everyday routine. Inculcating the habit of extensive reading, meeting people and educating yourself; there were skills that I was learning, including English. I come from a Bhojpuri area and we studied in Hindi medium, but even Hindi was mostly with a Bhojpuri twang.

I stayed in Bihar for 18 years and I’ve been in Mumbai for 30 now, but there is a very small percentage of Mumbai in me. Most of it is very Bihari. For references, I always go back to my roots. When I was playing Bhiku Mhatre (in Satya, 1998), I hardly knew any mafia guy from Mumbai, so I got all my references from Bettiah. Bahubalis or local young mafias roaming around freely were very stylish. I knew one of them.

Vandita Mishra: Did you model Bhiku Mhatre on anyone?

The shirt I bought for Bhiku Mhatre was colourful. That reference came from a guy who was quite dreaded in Bettiah. He was good-looking, and a Jeetendra fan. So he used to wear all white — white trousers and bobby print shirts or white shirts.

For some reason, I keep going back to Bihar for all of my references. These are mostly emotional references.

Vandita Mishra: You once said that Mumbai is not a city for the old or the very young.

It is not. Look at the infrastructure. They never cared about parks, they only cared about skyscrapers. They never cared about pedestrians, they only cared about the cars to move or buses to ply. If there are no parks, no greenery, there is no place for children to play, how will old or retired people spend their mornings and evenings. They have to be locked up in their apartment. The city clearly indicates that it doesn’t need you.

There is an unwelcoming approach to the old and the very young.

Vandita Mishra: In an interview, you had said that the life of an actor can be divided into two phases, pre-40 and post-40. You also said that post-40 what also starts happening is that your acting has to find dialogues in silence. What did you mean?

Till you hit 40, you are full of energy and life. You take it for granted and feel that there are a lot of years in your hands. It’s only after 40 that you start calming down. You start using all that you have learnt through the years really well because now you are quiet, you are not in a hurry. You start understanding the importance of each day. Today, I put in a lot more time, energy and experience into my work than I have ever done. Earlier it was mostly about energy, giving it all. After 40, actors mature. They sit back and analyse what they have done and what is left and how to make use of it in the wisest and most productive way.

Vandita Mishra: Bhiku Mhatre is an iconic character. Would you have played him differently now? Did that cast a shadow on your other roles?

It would have, had I not taken a different path of doing different kinds of roles and genres. That kind of success through that kind of a cult role was not easy for any actor to come out of. For three years, I was only known as Bhiku Mhatre. It’s only after Shool (1999), Kaun (1999), Aks (2001) and Zubeidaa (2001) that people started separating the actor from the character.

On Stars in the OTT Era | Since the films were played on the big screen, all the stars looked larger than life. There was a mystery element about them. They led a very private life because there was no social media or a paparazzi culture

Vandita Mishra: In Gali Guleiyan (2017), you play this middle-aged  man who is living in a small room in Old Delhi. He has put up cameras and watches people cross the alleys. At the same time, he is losing his grip on sanity. You’ve said that you reached the verge of a breakdown because of that character.

The extreme depth that you are trying to touch as an actor, for the character, started becoming evident from the beginning of my preparation, though not to me. It was my wife who said, ‘take care of yourself because I see you talking to yourself when you are walking by’. I didn’t take it that seriously. It’s only on the 29th day of shooting that I started hearing a whistle in one of my ears. All doctors were of the opinion of putting me on sedatives immediately… After that I felt alright but it was risky. It was risky to take that
preparation to that extent.

Vandita Mishra: There are two ways of approaching a role. One is what you did in Gali Guleiyan, you immerse yourself and reach a point of breakdown. Is it the character that defines this approach or do you decide as an actor?

I have done many roles where I retained my equanimity. It’s always the character. Gali Guleiyan would have failed if the character’s restlessness and breakdown were not seen in the eyes of the actor. The same is in Despatch (ZEE5). Kanu Behl is a taskmaster and has a process of workshop. This is very tedious, exhausting to the point of a breakdown.

Vandita Mishra: You were at the National School of Drama (NSD) as a teacher, you’ve also done workshops with (theatreperson) Barry John.

I was rejected at NSD three-four times. I did a lot of theatre. With Barry, I worked for seven years.

Vandita Mishra: Theatre is a very testing space, there is no retake. As an actor on the screen now, does theatre give you a certain creative energy? Do you draw from your theatre days or do they give you a sort of confidence?

The confidence of knowing the craft and ways to achieve the character are definitely there. Also, we are coming from outside and our fathers and relatives are not from the film industry. So you always want to make the best of each opportunity that you are getting. I still remember, I got this big opportunity in one serial and on the first day itself they said, ‘get out, we don’t like your performance’. Even after doing theatre for a decade, this could happen. Just imagine trying to learn on the job. It will be disastrous for your mental health. Theatre gives you the confidence that even after 10 rejections, you know this is not my time, the day my time will come is when I will shut them up.

Devyani Onial: When you go back home to Bihar, how do people there interact with you?

I go back to Bihar just to visit my village, my house. My parents are no more, so I don’t go there as often as I used to. The villagers never looked at me as a known star or known actor. They always looked at me as their own. I have always had a relationship with them, they have seen me growing big, from a child to an adult, who is now living somewhere else. I am just a babua for them, not Manoj the actor.

Raj Kamal Jha: You once said actors on the big screen are literally larger than life. So who’s the star when more and more people are watching a film on their phones? A related question: as an actor, what does streaming six episodes mean in place of a one-and-a-half-hour film?

Because the stars have changed, the genre has changed. Mainstream films used to have a very concrete storyline, even in the days of Rajesh Khanna. If you name five Rajesh Khanna films right now, all of them were directed by the greats of Hindi cinema, all of them had great songs and great music directors. I would love to be part of it. At the same time, since the films were played on the big screen, the stars all looked larger than life. Even the character actors looked larger than life.

On how Bihar shaped him as an actor | I stayed in Bihar for 18 years and I’ve been in Mumbai for 30, but there is a very small percentage of Mumbai in me. Most of it is very Bihari. For references, I always go back to my roots

There was a mystery element about all the stars. You would hardly see them in real life. They led a very private life because there was no intervention of social media or a paparazzi culture. With the rapid evolution of technology, the mystery went away. Now, look at the endorsements. For two-and-a-half decades, every second product is endorsed by an actor, right? He is everywhere. Rajesh Khanna or Amitabh Bachchan were organic superstars, but now superstars are also created through social media. It is completely PR-driven and whoever is good at it, whoever has deep pockets, a hype is created around them. So real stardom lasted only till the time technology became a big thing. But the one thing that will always survive is the story.

Rinku Ghosh: You’ve played many landmark characters and some of them probably stay behind in your head. How do you wipe the memory of the characters that you are known for?

Isn’t it impossible? That’s the downside of being an actor. I have not been chasing stardom, I have only been chasing good roles. So when you are so immersed and invested in playing a character, you may outwardly move on but you cannot be sure that the character has gone away. Subconsciously they are there, and I have come to terms with it.

Muzamil Jaleel: There are debates on whether films should only be for entertainment or whether actors also play a role in shaping opinion. Do you think taking a role is also a political act, or do you think actors should only be entertainers?

I will answer it differently because cinema is not only for entertainment, it is also a medium of art where I get a chance to express myself, where I get a chance to put out a story, where I’m not consciously trying to drive a message to the people. Each individual in the auditorium who is watching it or on OTT, it’s up to them what to take from a good story and what not to take. A good story also instigates a good conversation. And that is our job, to tell a good story. But taking sides as a storyteller is something I don’t think will help you in remaining just a director.

Then you’ll become a political director, political actor. And that is not my job.

Aakash Joshi: Martin Scorsese has famously said about Marvel movies… we are getting a sense now that the big spectacle film is the cinema hall film. Do you think that’s what’s going to happen? That cinema hall is no longer going to be a place of communal watching? That the hall is for spectacle and the technically brilliant, and somehow the more writer-driven, actor-driven, craft-driven films are going to be on OTT?

What you’re saying is something which has been happening for a few years, but I can’t say it is going to remain like that because Marvel films are not doing well lately. As long as people are enjoying them, they will go to the theatre to watch a Marvel film or to watch a VFX-heavy film. But the moment it becomes repetitive, they look for different options. Either they will watch a good film on OTT or a good series or they will wait for a good film to come in the theatre to watch it with family. So, this is just
a phase.

Nikhil Ghanekar: The first major credit that you got was for Bandit Queen (1994) and it was a controversial film… There are concerns about artistic freedom in terms of how the audience perceives controversial films and how the administration deals with them.

People are becoming more offended worldwide, on both sides. People have become very sensitive. Look at wokeism. Look at the way people are attacking each other. We are in a time when people are in conflict with each other. For reasons that are completely ambiguous, they are just angry, upset.

Jatin Anand: From the mid ’80s to the mid-2000s, there was a sort of a sub-genre of Bollywood: the ‘Indian gangster film’. Dayavan (1988), Satya (1998), Company (2002), Sarkar (2005) were best examples of it. A similar attempt was made with Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) but there’s been nothing really since then. Do you think this is because of a lack of actors who can fit such a profile or of storytellers and directors who can do this?

This has been the way of the industry, that one thing becomes successful and then suddenly you see lots of filmmakers making the same thing. After Satya, every second filmmaker would come to me with a similar kind of role. This also says that we, as an industry, are lazy, we don’t want to work very hard. We try to find a formula. Like now, every second or third filmmaker is writing or making a horror comedy…

But there are few filmmakers who are quite amazing, like Gangs of Wasseypur was written by the same guy who has written Satya. Both of them were about violence and mafia but they were very different.

Shalini Langer: You spoke about how Irrfan Khan’s method of acting was very different from yours — that you were drawn into the character and he drew the character to himself. What exactly does that mean? Also, what do you think happened to Ram Gopal Varma?

The good news is that he (Varma) is going to make his next movie with me. He was taking a long break, chilling out. I take a role and try to really change it completely, change myself according to the role. Irrfan has given a different interpretation to it, he made the role
his own, he gave a beautiful shape to the character.

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