'Without context headline': Hansal Mehta on his viral interview saying 'Manoj Bajpayee was badly behaved'

Manoj Bajpayee and Hansal Mehta have worked together in the 2016 film Aligarh and another 2000 film called Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar. In an interview with Cinema Express during a round table, the filmmaker spoke about the experience of directing the actor. He was quoted saying, “ It’s about the connection that you feel. Manoj has major mood swings. We made Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar!! in 2000, and he was a pain in that film.”

He added, “But at heart, he’s a nice guy. He’s not a bad person. You get that vibe. When we were working together, I used to get very irritated. I would ask, ‘Manoj, why are you behaving like this?’ That was the time when Manoj would take the character and just go. I don’t know how he decided that the character should be irritable, but he thrust it on everyone. Everyone used to run away from him. Saurabh (Shukla) used to be like, ‘I went to speak to him and he was mean. What’s wrong with him?’”

The director then clarified on X that it was a ‘without context headline’ publications were picking up:

Without context headline! https://t.co/8UpJ5dFodb

— Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) January 3, 2024

Hansal Mehta on Scoop

Scoop is an intense real –life drama. It makes you feel nostalgic and takes you back to your early journalism days when all you wanted was a byline on the front page.

In a candid chat on Netflix’s Scoop, director Hansal Mehta talks on why he felt, Karishma Tanna was the perfect fit for the role of  Jigna Vora.

Vora was a crime reporter of Asian Age, Mumbai. She was the main suspect in the murder of the Mid-Day reporter Jyotirmoy Dey. Her arrest and connection to Chhota Rajan and her life is an inspiration for Hansal Mehta’s Scoop.

He spoke about the show and adapting Jigna Vora’s book and said in an exclusive interview with Firstpost, “The book came to me before the first lockdown in 2020. The producers even asked me if I wanted to make a feature or a series. I read the book and told them two things, one, this is going to be a series, and two, I want to explore beyond the book.”