Manoj Bajpayee, a quiet force in the Bollywood scene, sat down for a heart-to-heart for podcast, voicing his views on the spiking divorce rate of today, substance abuse in Bollywood, and the Sanjay Leela Bhansali role he ended up declining. The influence of Bollywood has often been accused of leading to a spike in divorce cases prevalent in India. However, Bajpayee insisted that the fault lay not with the film industry, but with the rise of nuclear families spreading throughout society.

“If you go to Tees Hazari Court and ask about the divorce rate, you will realise where we have come today, where relationships and marriages are breaking every day,” he lamented. “Our society adopted the nuclear family trend, and there are benefits of it too, but the harm that the nuclear family trend caused, you can see it in the courts.”