‘I WAS ON THE VERGE OF A MENTAL BREAKDOWN’

Manoj Bajpayee talks about how his prep routine for Gali Guleiyan left him an emotional wreck

Prepping for a film is essential for an actor. And there are some, like Manoj Bajpayee, who like to push their limits. The actor is known to become the character he portrays onscreen but he nearly broke apart while shooting for the psychological drama, Gali Guleiyan, which released recently.

“It’s that kind of a journey, which was never reflected before on-screen. No director or writer could gather

[the] strength to take this psychological journey of a character mostly neglected in society, whom you are definitely going to encounter when you are walking in a crowded place. The one-and-ahalf months it took me to prepare for the film took a toll on me externally and internally,” says Bajpayee.

On what exactly happened, he elaborates, “I had to cut myself off from the world and everybody that I knew. I was shooting in Delhi, and I didn’t tell anyone I was here. I know people here, but I chose to not speak to them. Even on the film set, no one was allowed to come into my room. It was a requirement that I demanded.”

Many young actors from the current crop claim that after playing a dark, negative role which demanded them to go deep into their psyche, they had to see a psychiatrist to come back to sanity. What are Bajpayee’s thoughts on this?

“I don’t know for which role they had to go to a psychiatrist. All I’d say is that there is a conscious mind always trying to save you. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown; the film’s unit is a witness to it. When I confessed to my director (Dipesh Jain) that there will be a meltdown if we don’t wrap up fast, he panicked and sat with the chief assistant director to finish it quickly,” says Manoj, who was awarded the Best Actor award for Gali Guleiyan at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM).

I confessed to my director (Dipesh Jain) that there will be a meltdown if we don’t wrap up fast.

MANOJ BAJPAYEE ACTOR

PHOTO: AMLAN PALIWAL/IANS