‘TV production can wait’

Manoj Bajpayee admits that he was approached and is keen to produce a TV show but doesn’t have the time.

Manoj Bajpayee admits that he was approached by the soon-to-launch TV channel Me Home to produce a show. But his schedule is so hectic that he doesn’t have the time to spare.

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“I’d like to bring a fiction series featuring some of our greatest novels to TV but I’ll wait till I can give it a 100 per cent. I don’t think I will act in it, my movies keep me busy,” says the actor who is thrilled with the response to his plumpish, innocent look in Dus Tola on YouTube and is looking forward to the cross-country promotional tour for the film even though he’s not much of a traveller.

He put on 10 kgs for the role of the goldsmith and then had to go on a salad diet and hit the gym with a vengeance to lose it all in three months for Anurag Kashyap’s mafia thriller set in the coal mines of Dhanbad.

Isn’t he playing a Godfather-like don in that one? “It’s a fantastic character but he’s no desi Brando. The film is in two parts but my role finishes in Part One,” he says.

There’s also Aarakshan with Amitabh Bachchan and Ajay Devgn. “Mr Jha (director Prakash Jha) will give us a narration in a month’s time but from the briefing, it seems an exciting project for which we will return to Bhopal. I love the people and the food there and am thrilled to be working again with Mr Bachchan after Aks,” Bajpayee beams.

He’s in talks for two more projects but refuses to divulge details. Wasn’t he offered Priyadarshan’s Tez too but opted out because the role wasn’t meaty enough? “Even if I wasn’t happy with the role I’d have done it for Priyan,” retorts Bajpayee. “But in the case the dates clashed with those allotted to Anurag and Mr Jha.”

And is he a nervous father-to-be? He says, “I’m not going to say anything on this, it’s to premature.”