Manoj Bajpayee says he cried in his bathroom when Hansal Mehta’s face was smeared with ink by protestors, blames anger for their falling out

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He continued, “He doesn’t know this, but when that happened, I went into my bathroom and cried. How could this happen to someone like him?” Manoj said that he was very close to both of Hansal’s parents, and that he was very sad when his father passed. “His mother used to give me food whenever we would meet, because she thought that I must’ve not eaten. Only a mother can think like that,” he said fondly. Blaming his anger for a lot of his differences with past collaborators, he said that things could’ve been handled differently had he not resorted to outbursts. Manoj said that he is a much better person now than he was before, and even if he doesn’t meet Hansal or Anurag or RGV every day, he still has a deep respect for each of them.

Hansal has also spoken about his turbulent relationship with Manoj during Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!! In an interview with Cinema Express, he said that Manoj was ‘very badly behaved’, and this would cause problems on set. He had recalled, “But at heart, he’s a nice guy. He’s not a bad person. You get that vibe. When we were working together, I used to get very irritated. I would ask, ‘Manoj, why are you behaving like this?’ That was the time when Manoj would take the character and just go. I don’t know how he decided that the character should be irritable, but he thrust it on everyone. Everyone used to run away from him. Saurabh (Shukla) used to be like, ‘I went to speak to him and he was mean. What’s wrong with him?’”

Hansal had also opened up about the humiliation he faced after a group of protesters smeared ink on his face. “They not only vandalised my office but also tore my clothes. They demanded that I visit Khar Danda locality and offer a public apology. They were chanting slogans and demanded that I touch an elderly woman’s feet and seek forgiveness. They also blackened by face,” he told Siddharth Kannan.