National award winning actor Manoj Bajpayee, who also does Telugu films apart from his power-packed performances in Bollywood, says he doesn't get paid enough down south considering his efforts.

"I have done three-four Telugu films. Some of them are successful in Andhra Pradesh and have created quite a ripple there. But each and every penny that I charge working in those films is actually less as compared to the hard work it demands from me," Manoj told IANS.

Director: Ajoy Verma

Starring: Manoj Bajpai, Aarti Chhabria, Siddharth Makkar, Pallavi Sharda, Govind Namdeo, Asrani, Dilip Prabhavalkar.

Rating: **

It seems that Bollywood is slowly turning its attention to the rural scene, this year there have been a string of movies based on this subject. Directed by Ajoy Verma, ‘Dus Tola’ is one of those simply told folk stories that are passed from one generation to the next. Co-produced by the Warner Bros studios, this movie holds a lot of promise to the audience.

New Delhi, Sep 13 : Bollywood actor Manoj Bajpai will be seen playing the role of a goldsmith in quirky new comedy "Dus Tola", inspired by folk tales.

"Dus Tola" tells the story of a quaint little town Sonapur where Shankar (Manoj), the local goldsmith, is head-over-heels in love with his neighbour's daughter Suvarnalata (Aarti Chhabria) much to the chagrin of her father Daya Shastri (Dilip Prabahvalkar).

Mumbai, Sep 5 :  After playing a role inspired by the Mahabharata's Duryodhan in "Rajneeti", Manoj Bajpai has lent his voice to the character of Ram in 3D animation film "Ramayana - The Epic". He says doing the voice-over for an animation film is far more difficult than acting.

Mumbai, March 22 - Manoj Bajpai says his character in forthcoming "Raajneeti" is very similar to Duryodhana from the Hindu epic Mahabharata - he is powerful, regal and politically motivated.

"I am playing Virendra Pratap Singh. My role is almost like Duryodhana in Mahabharata," Manoj told IANS.

Mumbai, Nov 12 : First Shah Rukh Khan had it, then Aamir Khan and now National Award winning actor Manoj Bajpai has also got six-pack abs, but he doesn't want to show it off on screen.

"I've got all those muscles and six-pack abs but I don't show them to people," Manoj, who was seen in recently released "Jail" after a gap of two years, told IANS.

Manoj was away from the big screen as he was nursing shoulder injury.

"I have been working hard on my body after my shoulder injury. But I am known only for my acting and not my six-packs that I will go on displaying them," he said.

New Delhi, Oct 31 - At a time when his contemporaries were doing film after film, Manoj Bajpai was sitting at home nursing an injured shoulder and missing out on coveted projects. The actor, who will be seen in "Jail", says he was going through a frustrating time when Madhur Bhandarkar offered him the movie.

I didn’t even know there was a film called Unknown, from which the premise and pretty much this entire picture is lifted. That flick, I am told, part Usual Suspects (copied as Chocolate in Hindi), part Reservoir Dogs (made once as Kaante) was so unknown, it barely made it to DVDs in America.

If anything, this film says a lot about the advances made in the motion-picture plagiarism industry of Mumbai in the past few years. It’s no longer a case of innocent artistes with a lifetime of writers’ block, looking to pass off versions of Hollywood films as their own.