I did some wrong films but they paid my bills: Manoj

Manoj Bajpayee has been an actor in Bollywood for more than two decades now, having started his career with Drohkaal (1994). His career has had its share of highs and lows, but he prefers to focus on the former.

However, unlike many actors, Manoj doesn’t live in denial about failure; and he doesn’t blame anyone for it. “It’s always in your hands, and nobody else’s, if you do a ‘wrong’ film,” says Manoj. “I, for one, am always afraid of doing a wrong film, [a film] which doesn’t go with my conviction. I’m not proud of such films, but the decision [to do them] was mine. I took those decisions due to some severe circumstances.” The National Awardwinning actor’s definition of a ‘wrong’ film is one that he doesn’t believe in. “You have to convince yourself that you can sit at home and wait for the right role to come to you. I’m blessed to now have that much patience to sit and do something else [rather] than take up something I don’t believe in,” he says.

Asked to name a few such ‘wrong’ films, Manoj replies, “I’ll never name these films, because they were my decisions, and [being wrong] had nothing to do with the people who offered them to me — rather, they had given me work. These films may have been wrong for me, but at that point of time, it helped me pay some bills.”

“But I can proudly say that those wrong ones were few in my career.”

While box-office collections are usually of utmost importance to actors, Manoj, whose film Aiyaary will release on February 9, isn’t one to bother about it. “I don’t judge films on the basis of how much business it has done, or will do,” he says. “A good film is a good film, irrespective of whether it does well [commercially] or not. If you go by that, my career is made of flop films! There are people who’re convinced that though Manoj’s films haven’t done well, they were great, because I’ve done justice to the roles.”

Those films may have been wrong for me, but they helped me pay some bills at that time. But I can proudly say that those wrong ones were few in my career. MANOJ BAJPAYEE, ACTOR

PHOTO: JITU SALVANI