Actor Manoj Bajpayee, who will next be seen in the film Bhaiya Ji, has revealed about the time when he had to sign films just because he was running out of money. Manoj recalled the year 2002, when most of his films failed at the box-office. Ironically, the actor received National Awards for some of the films that failed.
One such film was Pinjar and Manoj said that not only he got the National Award for it, because of that film he also got the opportunity to work with Yash Chopra.
In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Manoj said, “I received the National Award for Pinjar. But it did not work at the box office. But do you know what Pinjar gave me? It made me feel brave. Yash ji saw the film and was mesmerized and was adamant on getting me the role in Veer Zara.
The actor further said, “Otherwise there was no place for actors like us with Yash ji. Yash ji also used to say, ‘Beta, this will happen now because I don’t know when it will happen. I don’t make films for actors like you’ (Yash ji used to say, ‘Son, this will happen now because I don’t know when it will happen) I Will work with you. I don’t make films for actors like you).” Manoj played a small role in the film directed by Yash Chopra.
Manoj Bajpayee also reflected on the difficult times and said, “It was a bad time. Below is what I saw, I hope no one sees it. When you have to do a film just because ‘now the money is running out, how will the house survive?’ People outside did not know that there was nothing in that big house.
Urmila Matondkar and Sanjay Suri were also in Pinjar.
