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Filmmaker Pankaj Parashar revealed that he played a part in bringing Manoj Bajpayee to Mumbai, and securing a high-paying gig for him so that he could support himself. He said in an interview that Manoj had already worked in Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen, but hadn’t secured more acting offers. He revealed that Anubhav Sinha, then an assistant, was sent to pick Manoj up at the airport, after which the actor was immediately taken to a beauty parlour to be made to look presentable.
In an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Pankaj recalled that he’d heard a lot about Manoj being a superstar in the New Delhi theatre scene. He was told to cast him blindly by people who described Manoj as a ‘Naseer-level actor’. He said, “I was shooting a children’s film, and Raghubir Yadav brought a young man to me, said he wanted to assist. I told him to give the clap; he was Anubhav Sinha… I was doing some series, but we weren’t finding the right artists. Sanjay Mishra was the first one I got. He told me about a ‘Naseer-level’ actor in Delhi who didn’t have a phone, but could sell out auditoriums.”
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The filmmaker continued, “We called Manoj to Mumbai. He said he didn’t have money for a flight, so we told him to borrow money. Anubhav goes to pick him up at the airport, takes one look at his face, and says, ‘We’ll have to take you to the beauty parlour’. He takes him to a beauty parlour! They get him a shampoo and a facial, and then he’s brought to my house. My first reaction was, ‘From what angle does he look like Naseer?’ Nevertheless, I told him to start from Monday.”
Pankaj Parashar said that while he didn’t give Manoj Bajpayee a break in the film industry, he certainly played a key role in bringing him to Mumbai. Two months passed, and Manoj ran out of money. Pankaj introduced him to adman Alyque Padamsee and sold him as a ‘south hero’. He negotiated a deal where Manoj got paid Rs 1.5 lakh for one day’s shooting. “He lost his mind. He could stay in Mumbai with that money,” he said. Pankaj went on to work with Manoj in the film Inteqam: The Perfect Game.
In an interview with Ranveer Allahbadia, Manoj had reflected on the financial difficulties he faced after moving to Mumbai. “It was a very bad phase of my life when I came from Delhi to Mumbai, I used to work 18 hours a day in Delhi without money, in theatre, but there was a creative satisfaction. Pata nahi hota tha ki khaana kaha se aayega (I did not know from where I would get my next meal from). I had no money, but God was kind. I was busy despite the starvation. But when I came here (to Mumbai), I had no work, no food, no money. I began to doubt my talent and myself, this was in the ’90s,” Manoj said.
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