As Gangs Of Wasseypur Part 1 and 2 completed 12 years this month, Manoj Bajpayee spoke on the film as it was originally planned. “It was meant to be one five-hour film. But no cinema would play one film that long. Gangs of Wasseypur happened to me all of a sudden, when I was done with Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti and few more films. Rajneeti was a kind of a resurrection for me, I would say, because for five, six years I was completely down and out when Rajneeti happened.The role I gave everything to. And then the choices increased as that happens in this industry. When you’re doing well, you know, suddenly there are too many choices that you are spoiled for.”
Manoj also recalled how Anurag Kashyap offered him the role. “One night I was about to, you know, retire to bed and I got this call from Anurag Kashyap at 10 o’clock. He said, will you work with me? I said, are you mad or what? So I want to do a film with you. Where can I send the script? I said, where are you? He said, I’m in my office. I said, I’m coming and taking the narration right now. I went across to him and we took the narration. And that’s how this film happened. And it was, it was out of the box completely.The only thing that he said that is stuck with me was that I want to give a tribute to commercial films. This is my, this is my ultimate Hindi mainstream commercial film. But at the same time, I want to turn everything on its head, all the templates.And that is where, you know, from that point, that was my, my kickstart. When it came to characterization, when it came to really working on the look along with him. The shooting, the preparation of it. I take great pride in saying that, you know, I used to literally drag him to Hansal Mehta ,Bhat Saab(Mahesh) and Ramu(Varma) , because I always thought that, you know, this guy is, yes, he’s a rebel, but he’s somebody who has all kinds of ideas. And that suited me, you know, that kind of revolutionary mind, that kind of a rebellious mind. And the creativity coming out of it was something else.And that also showed in all the films that he has done with me and without me. So it was, we were not in touch and I wanted to give that respect back to him. So he was the one who took the initiative of calling me.”
Many scenes were improvised. “Durga(Reema Sen) washing the clothes. And that has become such a historical scene for the audience. So many memes are made every day.Most of it was improvised when we were doing the workshop. And it stayed in the film because that’s the kind of director Anurag is. If he sees something, he’s ready to change the script.He is ready to rewrite if the actor is giving him an experience which he has never thought of. He will go ahead and, you know, encourage the actor or the technicians to, to put in their best. And he’s ready to embrace it fully.The director Anurag I was working with for the first time. The writer Anurag, I had worked in three films, Satya, Shool and Kaun. But it was great to see him so confident and so thoughtful before, you know, setting up any shot.So for me, that was, it was like knowing Anurag all over again.”
Manoj made many friends during the shooting of Gangs Of Wasseypur. “I made so many friends from Richa Chadha to Huma to Reema to Pankaj, Jaydeep, Rajkumar. So many great actors have got to work with so many great assistant directors on Wasseypur who became so big after that.Vicky Kaushal, I saw him running around and he was introduced to me as Mr.Sham Kaushal’s son. Because Vicky’s father is somebody who’s been very, very close, close to me. Shamji and I worked in a few of the films and those were the memorable films for us.Mainly the Bangladesh war film 1971 experience that both of us shared was amazing.”
Manoj feels t Gangs of Wasseypur is the Satya for this generation. “Because this generation was either just born when Satya came So what Satya has done to the whole mafia, gangster world, this is what Gangs of Wasseypur has done. To the whole Bahubali and the coal mafia world completely. And also it has really ignited the momentum of independent films.It has given so many, inspired so many independent film directors. It has inspired a whole lot of generation who came into the films to be an actor or to be a director, editor or cameraman. So yeah, the contribution of Gangs of Wasseypur is really, really huge.And I got to work with Nawaz. He was playing my son. We spent quite a lot of time together.I admire him. He’s somebody with incomparable talent completely.”
