With his next movie “Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai,” Manoj Bajpayee has achieved yet another achievement.
With his upcoming movie “Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai,” Manoj Bajpayee has achieved yet another achievement. The courtroom drama is based on the true story of a once-revered and powerful Indian religious leader who is currently serving a life sentence for the rape of an underage girl. Manoj portrays a prosecuting attorney in the Apoorv Singh Karki-directed movie who competes against other well-known attorneys.
“Typically, what occurs is that you get to know the true person over time. I eventually understood that since the movie is two hours long, you need to prepare separately from the real guy, who is a complete unknown. And he’s accomplished something incredible in five years of nonstop court appearances,” Bajpayee told in a conversation
Manoj Bajpayee continued, “Instead of just creating or imitating a real person, let’s have the essence of him – the relentlessness and the courage and somebody who is stubborn about what he’s doing, completely focused, and he’s a good son, good father. I wanted to take all of it and make a character of my own and take a little bit of his physicality when I got to meet him before the shoot – I think it worked.”
The most challenging aspect of Bandaa, according to Bajpayee in a Variety interview, was comprehending the legalese and translating it for a lay audience.
Manoj Bajpayee told the story of a challenge he accepted during filming. The director planned to film the entire seven-page monologue in a one take. After reading the pages 150 times, according to Bajpayee, he stopped counting. After memorising the speech, he would grab hold of anyone and start practising it on them.
By God’s grace, the initial attempt and shot were successful. If you really focus on it and set your mind to it, you can accomplish all of these things. “You can’t trust your child even with your brother in a room where there is no monitoring happening, and there is no female member there,” the actor added in reference to the underlying themes of “Bandaa.”
Manoj Bajpayee has received numerous acting honours, including the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Actor for the films “Aligarh” and “Bhonsle.” Devashish Makhija, with whom he previously collaborated on “Joram,” which debuted in Rotterdam this year and will be seen next in Sydney, is the director of the latter movie, for which he was also named best actor at India’s national film awards.
People have never lived in this world before. Bajpayee described “Joram” as a socio-environmental conflict that is no longer widely discussed. And he (Makhija) has masterfully woven the narrative. I’m so happy for him. He has been exceptional throughout everything I have done with him.
The busy actor is having a fantastic year; earlier this year, he starred in the Disney + Hotstar picture “Gulmohar.” He will have the Netflix comedy-drama-thriller series “Soup” from Abhishek Chaubey and “Pahadon Mein,” the follow-up from Raam Reddy, who made his breakthrough with the Locarno, Shanghai, and Palm Springs winner “Thithi.”
Bajpayee is also the lead in journalism thriller “‘Despatch’ by Kanu Behl who’s previous film ‘Agra’ premieres at Cannes this year. ‘Despatch’ has been a great experience in many ways. Kanu is one of a kind – he’s not for the weak-hearted. He’s a taskmaster,” Bajpayee said.
“He doesn’t get bothered by anything that is happening on the set. This is what I loved about him and the learnings that I’ve had from the workshops or through the shooting process. Yes, it was strenuous, excruciatingly hard. But, when I saw a few of the shots, I was completely dazed. He only warms up after 15 takes. So, you can imagine the grind that I’ve gone through. But in the end, when you respect and trust a director of that caliber, everything becomes easy. In the end, we managed to make a very good, fascinating, intriguing film. And this is going to be a totally different cinematic experience for the viewers
A third season of “The Family Man,” the spy thriller on Prime Video that is undoubtedly Bajpayee’s most well-known project to date, will start production soon.
“All agreements and pledges are in place. We are currently watching for the contracts to begin moving back and forth. We anticipate beginning production in November,” he stated.
