Manoj Bajpayee: ‘Kanu is a difficult and tedious director’

Manoj Bajpayee

If actors loathe anything, it's repetitive roles. This couldn't be truer of Manoj Bajpayee, who loves nothing more than breaking a template. After playing a gangster in Bhaiyya Ji, the actor is gearing up for director Kanu Behl's Despatch. "It's a 180-degree turn after Bhaiyya Ji. The film is releasing by the year-end. You shouldn't expect me to fit into a box. I am a rebel by birth and will die a rebel," he smiles.

Discerning cinephiles love the promise that a collaboration of Bajpayee and Behl - the director of Titli (2014) and Agra (2023), both of which travelled to the Cannes Film Festival - holds. With Despatch, the actor-director duo has teamed up on an investigative thriller set in the world of crime journalism. While Bajpayee is tight-lipped about the film's world, he opens up on his experience of working with Behl. "Kanu Behl is a different kind of a director, he is one-of-a-kind director. His demands are impossible to meet. He is a difficult and tedious director. But I am proud of the fact that I worked beautifully with him despite his demands and expectations. That means I can work with anyone," he laughs.

Headlining Behl's movie is yet another step in the actor's pursuit of novel stories. With 100 films behind him, Bajpayee is looking to collaborate with young and new directors at this stage. "I am looking for new directors all the time, those who are in their late 20s and early 30s, because times are changing, storytelling is changing as are the ways to define a character. I am always trying to learn."

His eagerness to constantly learn and evolve has earned him a reward - a rich filmography. The actor is excited that in this year alone, the audience would have seen him in diverse roles in Silence 2: The Night Owl Bar Shootout, Bhaiyya Ji and Despatch. "When they say something is unlike a Manoj Bajpayee film, I take that as a compliment. Once you make a formula for me, I come up with something else that breaks the formula. I want to keep breaking that template you have in your mind. The audiences in tier-2 cities of India, Pakistan and Middle East aren't judging me just because I was doing a certain kind of genre. They are
exhilarated [with my offerings]."