Manoj Bajpayee opens up on why he never wanted to shift to Mumbai
The COVID-19 pandemic brought a huge change in filmmaking as it created equal opportunities for talented artists in the Hindi film industry, actor Manoj Bajpayee said on Friday.
The National Award-winning actor, talking at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), said the pandemic was n great equaliser.
“Anybody who was doing any role, other than the hero’s, was treated like a second-class citizen, on the set, by the audience, on the posters or at the award functions.”
“That something never went down well with me, and also for that reason I never wanted to shift to Bombay. Because I realised that at the most they can give me a villain’s role but at the end it was all about heroes and celebrating heroes,” said Bajpayee.
As indicated by the actor, things have changed definitely over the last one decade, and more so during the pandemic.
“Now we are working in a time when so many women oriented films are being made, time has changed very quickly in this last one decade … So much so that the pandemic, which has been really bad for the entire world, has been great for the entertainment industry.
“It has really changed the whole dynamics of filmmaking, the main character or the secondary characters. It has really given a level-playing field to all the talent,” the actor said in a session titled “Pure Evil: The Bad Men of Bollywood”.
He also said, “Nana Patekar is one actor who is not praised enough. He is one talent who has given a position to all the theatre actors or the true actors in the time when commercial cinema was really ruling the box office or the industry.”
