‘Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan have been famous since the age of 25, they don’t know what it’s like to not have fans’: Manoj Bajpayee

Manoj Bajpayee said that he finds it uncomfortable to have fans who clamour for his attention, because he has consciously tried to carve a path that avoids mass popularity.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | September 12, 2025 04:09 PM IST

3 min read

Manoj Bajpayee and Shah Rukh Khan were in the Delhi theatre circuit at the same time.

Actor Manoj Bajpayee said that unlike some of Bollywood’s biggest stars, he isn’t comfortable with the idea of having millions of fans. In an interview, he said that he finds the idea ‘claustrophobic’, especially after his recent work on streaming has only introduced a new generation of admirers to his work. The actor said that he has worked on a variety of films and characters over the course of his three-decade-long career; some of his movies and shows have attained astronomical fame, while others have remained under the radar. He said that mainstream Bollywood probably ‘fears’ independent personalities like himself, because they don’t want to lose their position of authority in the industry.

He told Bollywood Bubble, “Please try to understand where I’m coming from. I have been working for more than three decades. I have never reached a place where people are chasing me and following me and crying looking at me. I’ve never had that kind of reaction from the audience. I’ve been doing my work; some of my films just went through the roof, some were mid-range, and some stayed under the radar. Since my path was not something which would lead to so-called stardom, and it was a conscious choice, I was fine doing those films.”

Also read – ‘Shah Rukh Khan is still an outsider, and the real Bollywood insiders want to be seen with him’: Manoj Bajpayee

He added, “There’s too much of me coming out, in various roles and genres. And now, there is a new kind of audience, a new breed of filmmakers and actors coming up. When I’m surrounded by new fans now, I find it claustrophobic. It’s not something I’m used to. Salman, Saif, Ajay, Shah Rukh, Aamir are used to it. They got their stardom at the age of 25. They don’t even know what it is to be without fans. I am used to having no fans. I find it too interfering.” Manoj and Shah Rukh rose up the ranks together in Delhi’s theatre circuit.

In the same interview, Manoj said that despite his fame and supposed sway in the industry, he still struggles to get funding for his smaller projects. If those projects ever get made, he is forced to beg before exhibitors to get a few extra shows for them. He also takes pay cuts when he works on independent films, and balances that career out with his more populist work. He will, for instance, return for the third season of his Prime Video show The Family Man, which is is arguably his most popular piece of output in the last several years.

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