New Delhi: Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vijay Raaz are counted today among the Hindi cinema actors whose craft everyone admires. But before reaching this height, all three endured an enormous struggle. Recently, Manoj Bajpayee shared an amusing incident from those early days and recalled Nawaz and Vijay's theatre years.
The story goes back to when Nawazuddin and Vijay Raaz went to meet the director of a well-known theatre in search of work. The director asked them about their background and wanted to know why they wished to act. The trouble was that there was no role left vacant in the play. But the director turned out to be quite resourceful. He said the play needed trees, so the two of them could simply be turned into trees.
In an interview with 'Fever FM', Manoj Bajpayee recounts that these two were not the only ones playing trees on stage; in fact, an entire group of seven or eight people was assigned to the task. During the play, these future superstars had to stand straight and motionless as trees for two and a half hours at a stretch. Just imagine — people who had come with dreams of becoming actors were made to stand on stage like pieces of wood.
The anecdote does not end there. Back then, Manoj Bajpayee used to rehearse day and night at the theatre like a man possessed. Seeing his intense hard work, Nawazuddin and Vijay Raaz were left stunned. They even began to doubt their decision to step into acting, wondering whether the path to becoming a star was really this difficult.
Laughing as he revisited the old memories, Manoj said that Nawaz and Vijay would often step outside and talk among themselves. Pointing at Manoj, they would say, 'Man, this fellow is slogging like a beast of burden — does acting really demand this much grind?' After watching Manoj's gruelling rehearsals, the two had at one point even made up their minds to pack their bags and head back home.
The funny twist came when these two artists turned out to be 'bad luck' for the director. It so happened that once, while the director was enthusiastically giving directions, he suddenly collided with the two of them and fell hard. The injury was so deep that screws had to be fitted into the director's hand.
After this, the rest of the theatre group began teasing the director that these two boys were a jinx for him. Things reached a point where, following that accident, the director could give instructions throughout the entire play using only one hand. Even today, when the three of them recall this, they break into uncontrollable laughter.
Manoj Bajpayee believes that those very days of being trees and slogging like labourers strengthened their friendship. The three were not merely work companions; they travelled together, slept in the same hall, and shared whatever they got at the mess or roadside eatery. It was that period of struggle that has brought them to where they stand today.
