‘OPINIONS DON’T BOTHER, BUT TEACH ME’

That Manoj Bajpayee is every critic’s favourite actor, is a well-known fact. Even though he has proved his acting prowess time and again with films such as Aligarh (2016) and Gangs Of Wasseypur (2012), he says that critics’ opinions don’t matter to him.

“I am a very thick-skinned guy. You can push me, but can’t break me. For me, it’s not about critical acclaim or box-office collections. At the end of the day, you want to tell a story, and play it out desperately and that matters to me. Opinions only teach me, they don’t bother me,” says Bajpayee, who is shooting for his film Aiyaary, co-starring Sidharth Malhotra and Rakul Preet Singh.

His upcoming film, In The Shadows (Gali Guliyaan in Hindi), already making waves both in India and abroad, premieres at the Busan Film Festival, and has also been nominated for the prestigious Golden Hugo award at the Chicago International Film Festival, an award India won only once, for Mrinal Sen’s Khandhar (1984).

Elated that the film is being talked about for the right reasons, the 48-year-old actor says, “For smaller films like this one, you need some encouragement from some quarter. If it’s coming from international quarters, then why not? We will be very, very shameless about the fact that our film is going to so many film festivals in India and abroad, because this will promote our film.”