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Internationally known as In The Shadows, Dipesh Jain’s Gali Guleiyan starring Manoj Bajpayee has been screened across 23 International Film Festivals and is all set to release in India on 7th September.
UrbanAsian got a chance to interview the amazing and talented actor Manoj Bajpayee, who has always made the audience go crazy with each and every character that he portrays.
Manoj Bajpayee, who will be seen playing the role of Khuddoos in Gali Guleiyan shared his experience working as Khuddoos and also shared spoke interesting facts about the shoot and the movie.
Read it all here:
- What was that one thing that caught your attention in the script?
It’s the manner in which the script is written. And also my character Khuddoos is something that has never been explored in the independent films nor in the mainstream cinema. That has given me quite a boost, an excitement to just go ahead with this and I somehow realize that if I pull it off well, then I will be the first person to do it. It was a difficult journey.
It was a journey which was almost impossible. I knew that to do this character I had to completely immerse myself, I had to completely cut myself off from the rest of the world. It required a certain kind of preparation which could easily change my personality. I was ready for it but all said and then, after one and half months of preparation, one month of shooting all of it together, it has pushed me on brink of losing the touch with the reality, that was scary. That was a time when I was quite concerned about myself, my head started being heavy, I started losing the sense of now and that was the time when I went to my director and said please wrap it up because I may have a complete meltdown if we don’t finish it fast.
This is the journey of the actors that you put in everything in a project. You take so many risks. You don’t leave anything for yourself, you just put it out there just for one character and this is what we enjoy and that this called the craft of acting.
- What all preparation did you have to go through for Gali Guleiyan?
Yaa! There are many. There are two kinds of preparations that happens- External and Internal. You go through the scripts again and again and you keep noting down and jotting down all the points of the character. Keep dividing it into external and internal and all the external points try to get it into your external self. That includes your look, your hair, and drooping shoulder but internal is what’s happening in the mind. What is his mindset? What are his likes and dislikes? What are his thoughts about his pat, about everything surrounding him, what has made him what he is today? All of those things. It’s a very difficult journey to be an actor. If you really want to become an actor. But if it pays off then you should really feel glad. Sometimes they don’t pay off. In my case most of the time it paid off, sometimes it didn’t but if you don’t take a risk how are you going to be remembered.
- Any difficult/memorable scene that took place on the set.
There are too many. Like, people couldn’t recognize my face. They used to take time to recognize me when they used to see the camera and then they used to find who the actor is and they used to completely ignore me. After a few double takes, they used to find out that this is Manoj Bajpayee and then the crowd used to gather. But I was so much interested in ordering Biryanis, Jalebis, Parathas from Purani Delhi, but I had to stop myself because I was on a massive diet and I wanted to wait till the last shot was taken and as soon as the last shot was taken, the first thing I did was I ordered Rogan Ghosh and Biryani and I really hogged it that day. (laughs)
- How was it working with Ranvir Shorey?
Ranvir is a darling. I love him, I really admire him for whatever he does. I have known him for many years since he was an assistant director in TV series and I was a part of that series. We used to have parties. I was younger and used to love parties. I know Ranvir since then. I like his sense of humor, I lie in the manner he doesn’t take his name and fame seriously. He is just like a normal person who has his own ups and downs. I just admire him completely.
- Gali Guleiyan has been screened in many Film Festivals and has been loved an appreciated by all. So how does it feel?
It is amazing. When you go to these international film awards and for these awards you have to submit your films and then their own experts choose the films for the festival and then you representing your own industry, your own country and when you get so much of appreciation, so many awards and such positive talks, you feel great! The film is tried and tested by the audience in huge number so now is the time after 8-9 months of this journey we decided to release the film here for our people. The film is in Hindi, so it deserves to be shown to the Hindi audience.
- Whenever you play a character you always leave a mark behind it. So what is the secret behind this?
I don’t know. It is the love of the people. I feel that it is the hard work and trying to put the character in its real world. You have to put the real essence of the character onscreen, the essence that people have not seen. They have seen it in life but they would never know that they could feel that same essence onscreen. Real essence somehow attracts people. It makes them feel that they have seen them. And when you put it out there with a lot of sincerity and hard work they relate to it definitely. My heroes are the common people. I pick up my character from the common world, from the crowd that I have seen and I am a part of. Those are my heroes. For me a person, who is traveling in a metro, waking up at 3 in the morning to take a train to Churchgate for work, he is my hero. So I look for those characters in a script.
- What does the title Gali Guleiyan mean?
Gali Gueliyan is a lane in Puarni Delhi and that is where the character that I am playing Khuddoos lives. That is where his house is and his entire life is spent in that lane. He finds it very difficult to come out of that lane.
- Any experience you want to share from the Gali’s of Mumbai?
Gali’s of Mumbai are fantastic. Mumbai is increasingly becoming the city of lanes. All the main road are crowded so I see most of these people take the narrow lanes. Those lanes used to be so lonely, so unoccupied. All of us living in this city are living in the lanes of Mumbai. It is simply fantastic. It has its own culture, own society. It is a different city but a fantastic one.
- What’s next?
The moment Gali Guleiyan is released I am off to finish the shooting of the last schedule of a web series, The Family Man. It will be released on Amazon next year. I am enjoying shooting for that web series because it is giving me a lot of opportunities to do those little things that we don’t get to do in a movie.
Directed by debutant Dipesh Jain, produced by Shuchi Jain of Exstant Motion Pictures, GALI GULEIYAN will release in India and Worldwide on 7th September 2018.
