It is for the third time that Manoj has been pitted opposite Amitabh Bachchan, this time as a wily young politician, who uses every means to break the system, in Prakash Jha's 'Satyagraha'.
"In an Amitabh Bachchan film, there's no other role which is better than his. In such a situation it's only the negative role which is as good as his, so it's best to go for the negative.
I must say in films like 'Aks', 'Aarakshan' or even 'Satyagraha' now, the roles were written very carefully," Bajpai said in an interview here. The actor has played anti-hero or negative roles with elan in films like 'Aks', 'Road', 'Rajneeti', 'Aarakshan' and 'Satyagraha'. "Negative roles are very difficult.
In this film ('Satyagraha') my character is a pure villain but I had to make an effort to evoke laughter too. I told Prakashji that no more negative or politician role for me. I think even he is sick and tired of political films.
Now, whenever I will do a film with Prakash Jha it will be a positive role." 'Satyagraha' is a multi-starrer film with Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor and Amrita Rao. But, Bajpai is not bothered about sharing screen space with so many actors.
"I don't care if I am doing a multi-starrer film or a solo hero film. Every actor knows his place as everyone knows what kind of character they are going to portray," he said.
Besides Jha, Bajpai says there are very few people in the industry with whom he shares a good relation. One of them is filmmaker Sanjay Gupta with whom he has worked in films like 'Dus Kahaniyaan', 'Acid Factory' and 'Shootout at Wadala'.
"Sanjay Gupta is a very dear friend. We both went through a bad phase, so we relate to each other. It became my responsibility to support him in the time of his own crisis," he said.
