Manoj Bajpayee is one of the few actors who revolutionized the acting and filmmaking business in India and he often talks about how things were before that transition. Recently, while speaking at the ongoing Jaipur Literature Festival, Manoj recalled how the hero centric films of 80s and 90s bothered the artist inside him.

He said, "Anybody who was doing any role, other than the hero’s, was treated like a second-class citizen, on the set, by the audience, on the posters or at the award functions." This was also the reason why Manoj never wanted to move to Mumbai to pursue film acting.

"That something never went down well with me, and also for that reason I never wanted to shift to Bombay. Because I realised that at the most they can give me a villain’s role but at the end it was all about heroes and celebrating heroes," he said.

However, times have changed now and Manoj is happy about how cinema has evolved in recent years. He said, "Now we are working in a time when so many women oriented films are being made, time has changed very quickly in this last one decade So much so that the pandemic, which has been really bad for the entire world, has been great for the entertainment industry."