Manoj Bajpayee who grabbed the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his film 'Aligarh' as well as Best Actor in a short film for '
Taandav
' opened his heart out in a candid chat, during his visit at Times Internet Limited in Gurgaon. He interacted with the employees in an open chat via webcast. Here are some interesting excerpts from the chat:
On being asked about how he managed to make ends meet during his struggling days in Delhi, Manoj revealed that he used to conduct a lot of workshops.
He said he lived at different places for about 10 years in Delhi. 'I lived in Shakarpur, Mandi House, Mukherjee Nagar or Yamina Vihar. There are always so many festivals going on in Delhi. Sometimes there is a Nagaland festival or some programme with street kids, so I used to do odd jobs at these festivals.'
Barry John hired me at a salary of Rs 1200. I used to teach kids at workshops. From 6:30am in the morning, I spent mornings at the
Spastic Society of India
doing a job, where I would get Rs 400 per month.
The actor said, 'I used to study in a Hindi medium missionary school in Bihar which was the biggest school of that area. But I could never learn English. If you look at this country after 20 years, the regional languages will not exist. Like I have a daughter and I am worried that why she is not studying Hindi. But other parents are not concerned.'
Talking about his understanding of English, he said, 'People don't want their kids to learn Hindi. It's so uncool. Our mother tongue is not just a language but it's our identity and they are losing their identity. English is not a language here. It's a skill, a symbol of status. Like Bhojpuri is my identity. It's not just a language. English will never be able to become our identity.'
Speaking about his relationship with money, he said, 'Money is like my girlfriend, I am happy seeing her (money) but only after work.' Talking about his choice of films, he said, 'I read a lot of scripts. A script should be excellent or the relationship with the person I have to work with. Like if Neeraj Pandey asks me to do a film, I will do it as I value him.'
Talking about his upcoming film '
Sarkar 3
', Manoj said that he just has four five good scenes in the film and the character is an important one but if it would not have been offered by
Ram Gopal Varma, he might not have taken it up. He let in that he did the film because he credits his career to RGV.
On being asked about how he felt after winning two
Filmfare Awards
this year, Manoj said, 'It was four in the morning and I wanted to go home. So I was happy that it finally got over. But a mainstream award function recognizing 'Aligarh' and 'Taandav' was definitely a remarkable thing. First of all, I was not even nominated for 'Aligarh' (at other awards), so getting the award for Best Actor for a Critics' Choice was surprising. And getting it for 'Taandav', it got registered in history for being the first actor who got it.'
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