'Been waiting for a film like 'Aligarh' to happen': Manoj Bajpayee speaks to Rajeev Masand

Manoj Bajpai’s next film Aligarh, where he is playing a real life character of an old gay professor, has created quite some buzz since it’s been doing the rounds of film festivals. Bajpayee, in an interview with CNN IBN’s Rajeev Masand reveals that he has long aspired to see such films being made in Bollywood. [caption id=“attachment_2633934” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rajeev Masand, Manoj Bajpayee & Rajkummar Rao. Firstpost[/caption] “I am the sacrificial goat. I started my career with Satya and kept waiting for films like Aligarh to happen,” Bajpayee told Masand. Ask him what made him take this role up in Hansal Mehta’s directorial, and Bajpayee said, “It was the fight of an old fragile person, somebody who is reluctant, somebody who is not like Bhagat Singh or Mahatma Gandhi. He doesn’t want to fight but he is coaxed into fighting this battle for the right to privacy or only because he wants his dignity back; he wants his job in the University back.” Aligarh also has Rajkummar Roa playing a role of a journalist. Bajpayee is all praise for his co-actor and thinks Rao ventured into acting at the right time. “He came at a time when there are so many filmmakers working to change the story-telling, so many new actors are coming in. The time when Anurag Kashyap was at his peak, Dibakar Banerjee was at his peak, or even Hansal was at his peak, and director Vishal Bhardwaj was doing such great work. He entered with the right face and the right smile and with a great impression,” said Bajpayee. Rao shared the same sentiments and said, “I feel very fortunate that I started with Dibakar Banerjee in LSD. That pretty much put me in that actor category and people took notice of me as an actor. I feel very fortunate that he took me in his film, else the journey would have been very different." Watch the full interview in Now Showing at CNN IBN today