‘Maarunga pakad ke’: Jaideep Ahlawat jokes he’d recommend death to someone who hasn’t watched any Manoj Bajpayee movie | Bollywood News
Manoj Bajpayee and Jaideep Ahlawat have been headlining two flagship shows of Prime Video India — Raj & DK’s espionage drama The Family Man and Sudip Sharma’s crime thriller drama Pataal Lok respectively. But in season 3 of The Family Man, they come face to face. Jaideep’s formidable drug dealer Rukma locks horns with Bajpayee’s lead character of top spy Srikant Tiwari.
However, in real life, they are part of a mutual admiration society. Before The Family Man season 3, they’ve shared screen space in Anurag Kashyap’s 2012 crime epic Gangs of Wasseypur, where Jaideep, 45, played the father of Manoj, 56. Prior to that, they worked together in Bedabrata Pain’s 2012 period war drama Chittagong.
When SCREEN asked the cast and creators of The Family Man season 3 to recommend a Manoj Bajpayee film to “someone who’s been living under the rock for the past 25 years,” Jaideep was quick to respond with a scene-stealing recommendation. “Main toh maarunga pakad ke! (I’ll just hit him hard!). Why would I recommend? Tum jeene layak nahi ho be******d, maro! (You don’t deserve to live, go die!),” he said.
As everyone else, including Bajpayee, broke out into uncontrollable laughter, Jaideep went on, “I would recommend: ‘Die!’ I like the way you die, bro!” No one else present, including Priyamani, Raj, DK, and Nimrat Kaur, could top that answer, which they declared as a perfect “mic drop” moment. Bajpayee also nodded along, continuing to laugh.
Earlier in the interview, Jaideep described Bajpayee as a “chalta-phirta institute” (a walking institute). “Even the little memories I have with him from Chittagong are monumental for me. I’ve even told him then that his speeches from Shool (1999) are still referenced in actors’ speech training. Generations have learnt from his craft. It’s a huge journey for me to observe him on the sets of Chittagong to now working with him now,” says Jaideep, visibly tearing up.
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Bajpayee returned the favour responding that the camera doesn’t oblige an experienced actor over a less experienced one. “Jab camera chalta hai na, saara ka saara seniority and experience dhara ka dhara reh jata hai. Only what you do at that point of time matters,” he says. “I keep calling him every time I watch Pataal Lok or his other work. He hasn’t called me yet though (laughs). I learn a lot from his scenes, especially in Pataal Lok. How Hathi Ram reacts to something in a moment, I’ve even told him I’ve wondered that I perhaps something more within me to invoke. I thought it can’t be done better than how he does it. So, there’s always an admiration for actors who teach you new ways to do something,” added Bajpayee.
