‘As Jaya Bachchan said waah, Amitabh Bachchan got up and sat elsewhere’: Manoj Bajpayee recalls ‘reserved’ Big B’s response to Shool

Manoj Bajpayee said that the who's who of Bollywood would request Ram Gopal Varma to hold private screenings of his films for them.

Amitabh Bachchan watched the films Shool and Satya with his family. (Photo: Varinder Chawla)

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Actor Manoj Bajpayee recalled Jaya Bachchan’s vocal admiration for a scene in the film Shool, and said that her husband, Amitabh Bachchan got up and changed his seat because of it. In an interview, Manoj said that it was common for a series of industry screenings to be arranged for Ram Gopal Varma’s films back in the day, and one such screening saw the Bachchans in attendance.

He said that most audiences would get choked up during a scene in which his character’s daughter dies. Shool was directed by Eshwar Niwas, one of RGV’s assistants, and also starred Raveena Tandon and Sayaji Shinde. Recalling the incident, he told The Lallantop in Hindi, “The biggest stars of the industry would request Ramu to hold private screenings of Shool for them. There wasn’t a single screening where the crowds, and the star’s family, would give a standing ovation.”

Also read | Sushant Singh Rajput could not handle the politics of becoming a star, says Manoj Bajpayee: ‘He told me about his challenges’

He continued, “One time, after the girl’s death, Raveena and I were sitting and watching quietly. Jaya Bhaduri was watching, and she suddenly goes, ‘Waah, waah, waah!’ Amit ji looked at her, got up, and went and sat somewhere in the back. He didn’t want to be disturbed. Jaya ji is very expressive, and he’s more reserved.”

In the same interview, Manoj also recalled when he first met Amitabh, at a preview screening for his breakout film Satya. But on that occasion, he happened to be drunk, because Ram Gopal Varma had insisted that they have a few drinks before the show. When Manoj came face to face with Amitabh, his idol, he didn’t know how to react. “I went numb, I’d had too much vodka. To this day I don’t remember what he said, it was like meeting a God,” Manoj recalled.

The actor can currently be seen in the ZEE5 film Sirf Ek Bandaa Kaafi Hai, in which he plays a lawyer fighting a case against a self-styled godman accused of sexual crimes. Manoj, Raveena and Amitabh would collaborate on the 2001 film Aks.

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