Manoj Bajpayee is the quintessential common man: ‘The Family Man’ makers

For Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, who are producing their first ever web series “The Family Man”, actor Manoj Bajpayee was the best choice to narrate the character of a middle-class common man.

“I think Manoj is the quintessential common man who can rise above occasions and that is the essence of the character in ‘The Family Man’. Needless to say that he is a great actor.

“One of the important factors of his persona is that he holds a great combination of a husband and a father who also can fight for a greater cause… Somewhere he holds that conviction whenever he appears on-screen,” Krishna told IANS here.

The story of the show is about the journey of a middle-class middle-aged man who is trying to balance his family life with his wife and children, and at the same time, he is fighting against terrorism.

Krishna said: “Everything is happening in a deglamourised fashion, close to reality and not in slow-motion, something that we are familiar with while watching Bollywood cinema.

“So, he (Manoj’s character) does not have a cool car, but travels by local train and he arranges a home loan to buy a bigger house.”

The story pans from Kerala to Kashmir and goes to Balochistan and beyond, capturing the constant political changes happening around the world.

“Manoj is driving the story throughout… One can say that he is a James Bond living in Chembur,” quipped Raj.

According to the producer duo, the actor agreed to come on board for the project in no time.

“We went to give him the narration and within 10 minutes of hearing the story, he said, ‘Yes, I am on’. That gave us the confidence that things are going good,” Raj said.

The shooting of the web series is about to get over and by the next year, Amazon Prime Video will release it online.

While Manoj has acted in a few short films earlier, how was the experience of shooting for a web series?

“It is surely a different experience of shooting for a web series because it is a little exhausting process… A lot of hard work is involved in it. We used to do a lot of rehearsals before the camera rolled.

“When the camera is on, we are doing it in one take, mostly. So that brings back my practice in theatre and stage performance. I would say it is a combination of theatre and cinema,” said the National Award-winning actor.