Bollywood News and Stories From India

He’s a risk-taker, dedicated to his craft and quite insensitive to critics and juries. Versatile actor Manoj Bajpayee says, “I’m not that hopeful about getting honoured in this industry because we have too many do’s and don’ts.” In November, Bajpayee won the Best Actor Award at the 10th Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Brisbane, Australia, for his performance in filmmaker Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh (2015). On not getting some of the major awards in India, he says, “I’m the first Indian to get this international award. Every set of jury comes with their own agendas in this industry. So, you can’t expect any award. When the jury’s agenda is purely to give away the award on the basis of excellence then I’ll start expecting. But here, each and every set of juries favour one policy one year and another the next year. You can just keep doing your work.” He adds that the subject of Aligarh excited him, right from the word go. “Aligarh is a special film, not only because it’s considered a c...

IN DELHI WITH THE CAST OF RAAJNEETI Prakash Jha, accompanied by Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Arjun Rampal, Nana Patekar and Manoj Bajpai, kick-starts the promotion of the hard-hitting and scathing look at politics, Raajneeti • PRAKASH JHA’S Raajneeti has taken six years from conception to completion and now that the gruelling shoot, which often saw crowds of 10,000 people converging to hear speeches by the characters, is complete, the cast has gathered in Delhi to begin the promotion of the film with a press conference. Despite the diversity of the cast whose metier might be other type of films, the camarederie between them is obvious. • THE FUN begins on the flight itself as Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bajpai tease one another mercilessly. Arjun tells us that Manoj cries like a baby on flights when there is turbulence and Manoj reveals how Arjun wanted to show off his new Porche and so offered Manoj a ride home but then summarily dropped him off when he saw the traffic on the way to Manoj’...