Manoj Bajpayee reacts to getting Special Mention at National Film Awards: Many performances went unnoticed in the past

Actor Manoj Bajpayee talks to HT City on being given Special Mention at 70th National Film Awards.

It’s his fourth National Award honour, and this time it’s a Special Mention for Manoj Bajpayee in the film Gulmohar. We break the news to him, “Wow! Best Hindi film too! I must call my director Rahul V Chitella right away, I was not even expecting for me. He is deserving of the honour, he has made such a beautiful film about relationships within a complex family system.”

Still from Gulmohar

He doesn’t miss the fact that it’s only in the past couple of years that his hard work has started not going unnoticed, “It’s happening now. There have been performances and films which went unrecognised, and times when things were just not looking up.”

Bajpayee’s journey has been an inspirational one, given the biases he has revealed over the years he had to overcome. And such biases initially extended towards OTT releases too. Gulmohar was straight to OTT. Addressing the division people made or still make on the basis of where something releases, he adds, “People who discriminated, they are threatened and challenged by the films and work actors and directors are doing on OTT. They are feeling intimidated and that’s a very natural thing for them. But they fail, because good work is good work. Thank you for letting me know about the news. I must have done something good in my previous births.”