Manoj Bajpayee says he felt happy about Chhichhore’s National Award win but ‘secretly hoped’ for Sonchiriya to win

Manoj Bajpayee said that while he was ‘very happy’ about Chhichhore winning the National Award for Best Hindi Film earlier this week, he wished Sonchiriya would have been honoured. Both films starred the late Sushant Singh Rajput.

Chhichhore director Nitesh Tiwari and producer Sajid Nadiadwala dedicated the National Award won by the film to Sushant. Other cast members, including Shraddha Kapoor and Varun Sharma, remembered him in their social media posts.

In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Manoj said that Chhichhore winning a National Award was like ‘poetic justice’. However, he would have liked Sonchiriya, in which he also starred, to have won something as well.

“When Chhichhore won the award, I was very happy because our industry is box-office oriented. If the film makes ₹250-300 crores and it is not being celebrated enough, then you feel like there’s something wrong. But when the same film wins a national award, it’s like there has been poetic justice towards it. There has been a poetic justice towards the film, it finally has the justice that it deserved. I really felt quite good when Chhichhore got the award, but at the same time I secretly hoped that Sonchiriya should have won something,” he said.

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Manoj called Sonchiriya ‘a classic and one of the best films of my career’. He said that while he tends to not watch his own films as he becomes critical of his performance, this is one film ‘that I lose myself to’.

“Every single frame and scene, Sushant Singh Rajput is great in the film along with Bhumi Pednekar. Bhumi has worked so well in the film. I had even told this to her that this film will always be above any work that other actresses from her generation have done,” he said.

Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, Sonchiriya is a dacoit drama that starred Sushant, Manoj and Bhumi, alongside Ranvir Shorey and Ashutosh Rana. While the film was applauded by critics, it was not a commercial success.

Manoj, meanwhile, won the National Award for Best Actor for his performance in Bhosle. This is the third National Award win of his career.