One of the few Indian actors to achieve both critical acclaim and commercial success, A-lister Manoj Bajpayee has achieved another triumph with ZEE5 Global film “Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai.”
Directed by Apoorv Singh Karki (Prime Video Series “Flames”) and written by Deepak Kingrani (Disney+ Hotstar Series “Special OPS”), the movie is a courtroom drama based on the true case of a once-respected and powerful Indian religious leader currently serving a life sentence for the rape of an underage girl. Bajpayee plays the prosecutor who must face a phalanx of famous lawyers.
“What usually happens is you spend some time with the real person. Somewhere I realized that it is a two hour movie, you have to have your own preparation, away from the real man, someone who is not even known to the world. And he has made a remarkable achievement in five years of continuous hearings,” said Bajpayee Variety. “Instead of just creating or imitating a real person, let’s have the essence of him – the ruthlessness and the courage and someone who is stubborn in what he does, totally focused, and he’s a good son, a good father . I wanted to take all of it and create a character of my own and bring a little bit of his physicality when I met him before the shoot – I think it worked.
What Bajpayee found most strenuous was understanding the legal jargon and then interpreting it in a way that a lay audience would understand. Courtroom dramas are inevitably verbose, the actor said, and excelling in scenes where he utters mostly technical legal terms was the challenge.
“For the character to work, he has to be consistent, it can’t leave realism at all. It can’t be done at all costs, just because it’s a two hour drama film it has to be real. And as a character, and even when he argues in court, it should be very real and have that kind of edge when people watch it,” Bajpayee said.
Another challenge was a seven-page monologue that the director wanted to shoot in one sitting. Bajpayee says that after the 150th time he read the pages, he stopped counting and once he memorized it, he got hold of everyone and started practicing the monologue on that person. “By God’s grace, the first shot, the first shot, it was okay,” Bajpayee said. “You can achieve all of these things, if you really put your mind to it, put your focus on it.”
On the underlying themes of ‘Bandaa’, Bajpayee said, ‘You can’t trust your child even with your brother in a room where there is no supervision and no female member. So we’re talking about all that, we’re talking about child safety, we’re talking about how a family is also responsible for all of this because in 95% of the cases most of the predators were known to the family. So that means we failed as parents, we took it for granted.
“It is an eye-opener in that way and our focus is primarily on the safety and protection of the child, an issue that is very close to my heart – always has been,” added Bajpayee.
Bajpayee has won several acting awards, including Best Actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for ‘Aligarh’ and ‘Bhonsle’. The latter film, for which he also won the Best Actor award at India’s national film awards, is directed by Devashish Makhija, with whom he reunited in ‘Joram’, which took a bow this year in Rotterdam and then in Sydney. will be visible.
“It is a world that people have not experienced before. It’s a conflict that people don’t talk about anymore, a socio-environmental conflict,” Bajpayee said of “Joram.” “And he is [Makhija] interweave the story so well. Really proud of him. He’s been remarkable with all the things I’ve done with him.
The busy actor is having a fantastic year, starring in the Disney+ Hotstar movie “Gulmohar” earlier this year. He has Abhishek Chaubey’s Netflix comedy-drama-thriller series ‘Soup’ due out in September or October and ‘Pahadon Mein’, Raam Reddy’s second feature film, which debuted with Locarno, Shanghai and Palm Springs winner ‘Thithi’.
Bajpayee also stars in Kanu Behl’s journalistic thriller ‘Despatch’ whose previous film ‘Agra’ will premiere at Cannes this year. “’Despatch’ has been a great experience in many ways. Kanu is one of a kind – he’s not for the faint of heart. He’s a teacher,’ Bajpayee said. “He is not bothered by what happens on set. This is what I loved about him and the lessons I learned from the workshops or during the recording process. Yes, it was strenuous, excruciatingly difficult. But when I saw some of the photos, I was completely dazed. He only warms up after 15 takes. So you can imagine the grind I went through. But in the end, when you respect and trust a director of that caliber, everything becomes easy. In the end, we managed to make a really good, engaging, intriguing film. And this will be a completely different movie experience for viewers.”
And as for Bajpayee’s arguably most popular work to date, Prime Video’s spy thriller “The Family Man,” a third season, is set to enter production soon. “All commitments and agreements are in place. And now we wait for the contracts to go back and forth. We hope to start shooting from November,” Bajpayee said.
“Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai” is now streaming on ZEE5 Global.