Killer Soup actor Manoj Bajpayee says when playing flawed characters, he is guided by his innate humanity over the pressure of artistic responsibility towards the audience
Manoj Bajpayee
In 2024, Manoj Bajpayee has entered his 30th year in the industry. While he has loved every second of his three-decade run, the actor’s next goal is to achieve a work-life balance. “I am learning it the hard way,” he laughs before adding, “You have to prioritise yourself and your health. These things become very important as you age.”
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The actor couldn’t have asked for a better start to the new year. After winning praise for his three diverse films—Gulmohar, Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai and Joram—last year, Bajpayee shone bright again within the first fortnight of 2024 with Killer Soup. In the Netflix crime comedy, he plays the double role of a failed entrepreneur-husband and a masseuse, each character adopting selfish and devious means to attain his goal. Considering Bajpayee is easily one of the finest actors in the Indian film industry, does he feel pressured by his responsibility towards the audience while playing flawed characters? “We are all responsible people. When you are responsible, your beliefs, actions and creative pursuits won’t be wrong for people. We take so much pressure when we try to do justice to a role. We don’t need to take pressure from outside when there is enough pressure from within,” he says.
Bajpayee adds that his beliefs and actions stem from a place of humanity, and he doesn’t feel the need to design his public conduct against any external standard. “I look at everything from the perspective of humanity. When you start looking at things from the perspective of what’s right, your arguments start falling in place. For instance, with Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai, many said that we would get into a controversy. But we didn’t because we didn’t try to manipulate the truth. We looked at the story from the perspective of what’s right and not about who is wrong.”
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