If actors loathe anything, it’s repetitive roles. This couldn’t be truer of Manoj Bajpayee, who loves nothing more than breaking a template. After playing a gangster in Bhaiyya Ji, the actor is gearing up for director Kanu Behl’s Despatch. “It’s a 180-degree turn after Bhaiyya Ji. The film is releasing by the year-end. You shouldn’t expect me to fit into a box. I am a rebel by birth and will die a rebel,” he smiles.

Discerning cinephiles love the promise that a collaboration of Bajpayee and Behl— the director of Titli (2014) and Agra (2023), both of which travelled to the Cannes Film Festival—holds. With Despatch, the actor-director duo has teamed up on an investigative thriller set in the world of crime journalism. While Bajpayee is tight-lipped about the film’s world, he opens up on his experience of working with Behl. “Kanu Behl is a different kind of a director, he is one-of-a-kind director. His demands are impossible to meet. He is a difficult and tedious director. But I am proud of the fact that I worked beautifully with him despite his demands and expectations. That means I can work with anyone,” he laughs.