In the phase where halls were shut and anticipated blockbusters were on hold, OTT revitalised and rebranded Manoj Bajpayee yet again. However, he isn’t riding that wave to do mainstream projects at all. “I had a resolve that I will attach myself with middle of the road or independent cinema, and I am sticking to it,” he explains. And as to mainstream Hindi cinema, he has a word of caution: It has largely missed addressing the non-multiplex audiences for a while and so is unprepared for the current surge of the south. Excerpts from a chat:

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.

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!

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.

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 samaaj ke liye kuch kyun nahi kar rahe ho? Samaaj 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? Nahi 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.

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.

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, kneebreaking.

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 The 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.

If it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work. I have done Baaghi 2 and Satyameva 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.

Yes! I have been part of Tamil films and Telugu films. I exactly know why this is happening.

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 criticize 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.

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.”

Upper middle class ko jab hero mila, aur multiplex bhi usi waqt aaye, uske baad humne ye space miss kar diya. Lekin multiplex mein jaana 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.

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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.”

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.”