‘Bollywood has never looked beyond looks’

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After portraying a grey character in Rajneeti, Manoj Bajpai is back in Gangs of Wasseypur with yet another grey character that’s full of lust without any sensibilities of right or wrong.

Manoj says it’s his most negative character and a very different role. But hasn’t he always done different roles?
According to Manoj, he has done a variety of roles only because his priorities have been different. “It is just that my ambitions have been different, my dreams have been different. Also, my kind of face is not easily welcomed in the mainstream cinema. I knew my strength is my performance and my ability to deliver and I always played on that. I keep waiting for the roles to happen to me,” says Manoj, who admits that he is very patient by nature.
“I really have ample time to look for the kind of roles I want to do. I’m also a very secure person, so if something doesn’t work out, it doesn’t bother me much,” he adds and says that his patience helps him a lot. He says that if there’s a good role like the one in Rajneeti, he would go forward and grab it. But then he can wait for a longer time for a similarly exciting role to come his way.
Manoj has never tried to grab attention, or and make an extra effort to promote a film or even try to be in the limelight. He says it is because as a child he saw two deaths in the joint family he lived in.
“Since then, I’ve been aware of the crux of life. I know that nothing is permanent and also that whatever has to happen will happen. I don’t try extra hard to get something.”
But then there are certain things that make him sad. In the recent past he has spoken a lot about actors like him, Irrfan (Khan) or Nawazzuddin Siddiqui not getting their due in the industry.
“It’s not only about Nawaz, Irrfan or me. I feel sad not for us but I feel sad that the industry has never looked beyond the faces and the looks. That it has wasted all that we could have delivered. It’s not our failure, but the industry’s. Look at Anurag Kashyap. It took him so long to make a film like Wasseypur,” he says.
Talking about Anurag, he doesn’t forget to mention that Anurag has written the best films of his career. But one misunderstanding and they remained out of touch for years.
He laughs and, after a pause, says, “That was childish. I was never angry with him. He was angry, volatile and vulnerable. Maybe because his expectations from life were not getting fulfilled. I completely understood the situation that he was going through. I never had any grudge. Now, we are back with each other like never before. He works with me or he doesn’t consider me, is least of my concerns. I’m proud that I know him not just as a friend but also as a filmmaker. I’m proud that we’ve someone like Anurag,” he says.
And another thing he is proud of is being a dad to a one-year-four-month old daughter. “My daughter Ava Nyla Bajpai is an asset to me,” says the doting dad who is waiting for his daughter to utter her first word.
“I’m totally sold on her. I’m going to be a dad who she can easily use. She is going to blackmail me and arm-twist me,” he says with a laugh.