Sirf ek bandaa kaafi hai. Or so Manoj Bajpayee would have us believe in the film of the name, where he is playing a lawyer seeking justice for a minor girl sexually assaulted by a self-proclaimed godman. He speaks to The Telegraph of his latest outing — Bandaa — a courtroom drama that drops today on Zee5.

You have sought justice as a policeman or an officer of the special investigative agency. This time you do the same but as a lawyer. Have you played a lawyer before?

I had done a serial which used to come on DD (Doordarshan) around 27-28 years back, called Swabhimaan. I played a lawyer there too. But that was a family drama that ran for 250 episodes. Here I’m playing a lawyer again but it’s a courtroom drama. You’ll see him fighting it out in court and trying to get justice for a minor girl.

Is he one of those superhero screen lawyers who launch a parallel investigation or does he study the case file and orders?

He is a lawyer from a small town in a case which becomes a media circus after a point. He looks at all the proofs and the testimony, works on that and tries to find loopholes in them. Most importantly, he works on the Pocso Act (the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012), which came into operation after the Nirbhaya case. He uses that Act to get the girl justice, which was looking impossible at that point in time.

Given that this involves a godman who assaults a minor, has it been influenced by the Asaram Bapu case?

We are not basing it on one person. There are several incidents that the script draws from. The only real aspect is the lawyer who has come on board and helped us with the legal nitty-gritties. He is from Jodhpur and is connected to several high-profile cases. He helped us get the reality of the courtroom drama in place.

You tweeted some days back: “When a powerful godman preys on the vulnerable it takes an extraordinary banda to stand up for the victim.” Is that the film’s tagline?

Yes. There are many incidents in this country where the followers are let down (by their religious leader). But the focus for us was the minor girl for the courage with which she stands over several years with her version of the truth and how she helps this lawyer fight the case.

Tell us about the others in the film’s cast.

There’s Vipin Sharma who’s a fine actor and my senior from the National School of Drama. There’s Mr (Surya Mohan) Kulashrestha who is a veteran from Lucknow theatre. His performance is going to be talked about. Another great performance that you will get to see is of Adrija who plays this minor girl. She herself is 15 or 16 (years) in real life and the way she has portrayed the girl marks her out as a fine actor.

How long is the case shown to drag?

About three or four years.

You seem to have formed a team with Suparn S. Varma.

We are friends since a long time and we know each other very well. We have worked together in Family Man 2 (writer and director) and Acid Factory (director). Here he is the creative producer. His job was to facilitate everything that was required by the director, Apoorv Singh Kaarki.

Has the approach to the film been any different since you knew from the start that this is primarily for OTT?

No. We were thinking of releasing it in theatres. But Zee Studios and experienced people thought that there was not much of a jump in the movie-going audience (since the pandemic). So (we decided to) first release on Zee5 and then after five or six days, if we feel right, we’ll be releasing it in 10-15 single-screen theatres just to gauge how people respond to it in such theatres.

Increasingly, there is this feeling that after the pandemic, only high-voltage action will work on the big screen.

I don’t fully agree. A few days back, Afwaah released (a film directed by Sudhir Mishra). It is not action drama. Other content-driven films are also taking a chance in theatres. I’m very hopeful that in a couple of years when there will be a little bit of fatigue with OTT, people will go back to theatres. OTT and theatre will flourish together.

A scene from the Zee5 film Bandaa

How long is the film?

Two hours and 10 minutes. It’s shaped up so well. Take my word, it is one of the most important films of my career.

This February, you had posted a video message saying: “Iss Holi aap ke family ke liye aa raha hoon aapni family lekar.” The rumour mills immediately went into overdrive convinced that Family Man 3 was coming!

I know. But I was talking about Gulmohar (co-starring Sharmila Tagore, on Disney+Hotstar). It has been a huge success.

Gulmohar was a soft family drama, quite a lull after the storm of action and thrill in back-to-back projects like Family Man, Dial 100, Silence....

Silence is the most viewed film on Zee5 and we are gearing up to write the second part of it. I have been very busy and I’ve finished a few films. But last year there was a lull (in release). Only Gali Guleiyan, which had released in theatres five years back, released on Amazon. You are right. The lull was because I had to finish four to five films, so I was busy shooting for them. Now again I’m sitting at home not doing anything and only promoting Bandaa.

Your slate for 2023 seems to be quite full.

The year started with Gulmohar, in the middle we are coming with Bandaa. After this, there is Soup (a dark comedy) with Konkona Sen Sharma, directed by Abhishek Chaubey, Joram by Devashish Makhija (where he plays a Jharkhandi tribal who is a construction worker), Despatch by Kanu Bahl (where he plays a crime journalist) and Pahadon Mein by Raam Reddy.

What about Family Man 3?

The first round of talks is over and we are waiting for the script to finish so we can start preparing for the shoot. We start to shoot this year itself.

It is exciting that you are teaming up with Konkona Sensharma.

What an actress she is! We had such a great time shooting for this great work directed by a great director, Abhishek Chaubey. Soup is a series which will come on Netflix in September or October.