Meet actor who once worked as assistant for Rs 1800, is now known as king of OTT.
With dream in eyes to become a superstar in Bollywood, several people leave their home and arrive in the city of dreams, Mumbai and start from scratch struggling their way up the ladder. While some lose the battle to rejections, others quit because of the high competition. One such actor who thought to kill himself after facing several rejections, is now the king of OTT.
The actor we are talking about left his village at the age of 17 and faced many rejections before he became a star. He is now one of the highest-paid actors on OTT and never fails to impress the audience with his performances. He is none other than Manoj Bajpayee.
Manoj Bajpayee lived in a small village in Bewala and he got inspired to become an actor after reading the news of Raj Babbar, who came from a small town like his, hit gold in Bollywood. He then left his house with a dream to become an actor, however, had to face alot of struggle before becoming a known name in the industry. He said in an interview, "I have never had such a difficult time from the time I left my village at the age of 17 and a half. These four years were like 40 years. Everything was falling apart, once I got three projects: a series, a corporate film, one docudrama, and another series. In one day I was chucked out from all."
When he came to Mumbai, he used to live in a chawl along with 2 people. Recalling the time, the actor said, "My whole day was busy. (I used to live) in a chawl with two people, after I came back after six months, I saw that at least 10 people were sleeping there. Tigmanshu Dhulia was one of them. Victor (Vijay Krishna Acharya) who had made Dhoom had also spent most of his time there."
Manoj Bajpayee completed his college in Mumbai and after that, he joined the Sambhav theatre group and then Barry John. He took him as his assistant looking at his dedication at Rs 1,800 per month to act in his plays and for assisting him in his workshops.
Manoj Bajpayee faced a number of rejections, infact he was also rejected from NSD after which he wanted to kill himself. He revealed in an interview with Etimes, "The toughest was when I did not get selected for NSD. I had nursed that dream ever since I was in class seven. I was devastated. I have never come as close to committing suicide as I did then. My friends were scared and five of them used to sleep next to me and would never leave me alone."
Manoj finally made his debut with a one-minute role in Drohkaal and a minor role as a dacoit in Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen in 1994. After some unnoticed roles, he played the gangster Bhiku Mhatre in Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 crime drama Satya, which proved to be a breakthrough and after that he never looked back. He has starred in several films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Aligarh for which he even won a National Award for Best Actor, Naam Shabana and Veer-Zara among others.
He then made his OTT debut with the spy thriller series The Family Man which was a huge success. After that Manoj Bajpayee starred in several shows and movies on OTT like Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai, Killer Soup, Gulmohar and more and became the king of OTT. He reportedly charges Rs 10 crore per series and is one of the highest-paid actors on OTT.
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 "Manoj Bajpayee in Joram")
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