Manoj Bajpayee is one of the most popular and prolific actors in Bollywood today, adored by audiences and critics alike. However, Manoj’s journey to fame was a tough one. In a recent interview, he recalled how he moved to Delhi from Bihar with only Rs 120 and struggled to make ends meet, even dealing with depression.
Manoj told Sushant Sinha, “When I was in Delhi, every day used to be a new challenge. It varied from rent, monthly expenses, bus fare, food and to make sure to attend theatre every day and learn the craft. This was my life for 10 years… I travelled from Bihar to Delhi by train, and my father handed me Rs 120. That’s all I had. I had a friend, whose brother was studying at Hansraj College. I came to Delhi with him.”
He added, “We were young, so we had the ability to bear the physical exhaustion, but there wasn’t enough maturity. It was very hard to keep up mental sanity with the kind of challenges we went through every day. I had to learn Hindi, English. There was this professor in drama school, she came and said, ‘First fix his language and then we will do the rehearsals’, that came as a shock to me… It was also important to learn English, not as a language but skill.”
Manoj added, “I survived with the help of my friends, they bought me food. Back in the room, we were five of us, so they used to cook food, some or the other person used to cover for me. I just had a kurta, leather slippers, and a pair of jeans. This was all I had. I kept all of this in a tin box, which I still have with me. Everything I had used to fit in that tin box.”
Despite his effort, Manoj was rejected from the National School of Drama three times. This made the actor depressed. Speaking to ANI, Manoj said, “I went into such a depression where I didn’t know how to face the near and dear ones. And when you only have one plan you feel as if all doors have been closed. It was during this time that I had a passing suicidal thought that people made headlines out of but that wasn’t the case, it was just a passing that people experience while depressed.”
Now, on the work front, Manoj will soon be seen in the Family Man season 3 series. The actor recently shared a major update about the third season of The Family Man. The actor will reprise his role as Srikant Tiwari, who is a ‘middle-class guy and a world-class spy’. Srikant will expertly confront the looming threat to national security while balancing the demands of family life and desperately working to mend his relationship with his wife in the new season. He is currently raking in the praise for his recent release, Bhaiyya Ji.
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