In his 2024 Pinkvilla interview, Bajpayee explained that when he receives a role, he tries to think entirely from that character’s point of view, because that is what makes the performance believable. He was playing Raza, Zaara’s fiancé, and from Raza’s perspective, Veer was the man who had entered his relationship and taken away the woman to whom he was engaged.
Fact, opinion, or perspective?
I would separate it like this:
Statement: What it is
Manoj Bajpayee played Raza Shirazi, Zaara's fiancé in Veer-Zaara Fact
Veer and Zaara fall in love despite Zaara being engaged to Raza Fact within the film's story
Raza sees Veer as the person threatening his relationship Character perspective
Bajpayee said, “For me, Shah Rukh was the villain” Bajpayee's opinion/interpretation
Therefore Shah Rukh's Veer is actually the villain Not an objective fact
And this distinction is precisely what makes his comment fascinating.
The same story changes when the camera moves
Most of us watch Veer-Zaara through Veer and Zaara's eyes.
We see:
Veer → love → Zaara
and therefore:
Raza → obstacle → villain
But imagine the camera following Raza.
He is engaged to Zaara. He believes they are going to marry. Then an Indian man enters her life, they fall deeply in love, and suddenly the future he believed was his is disappearing.
From his emotional position, the story becomes:
“I am not stealing somebody's love. Somebody is taking away the woman who was promised to me.”
That doesn't automatically make Raza morally right. But it makes him human.
And that is where Bajpayee's acting philosophy becomes important.
He wasn't asking:
“How do I play the villain?”
He was asking:
“Why would Raza behave this way if he believed he was the hero of his own life?”
That is a much deeper question for an actor.
And there is another fascinating layer
Raza isn't even a conventional Bollywood villain.
He doesn't arrive saying, “I am evil.”
He has a legitimate relationship with Zaara. He has social standing. He is powerful. He has expectations of marriage. His conflict comes from possession, wounded love, social honour and power.
The crucial point is that Bajpayee himself acknowledged Raza's power. He explained that because Raza was powerful, he could trap Veer; otherwise, he might have had to live with the heartbreak or become something like a Devdas.
That gives the character another dimension:
Power changes what a person can do with pain.
A powerless person may simply suffer.
A powerful person may be able to make someone else suffer.
That's a very interesting psychological observation—not merely about Raza, but about human behaviour.
And this is where Veer-Zaara becomes more than a love story
There are actually three perspectives operating in the film.
Veer:
"I love Zaara. Our love is true.”
Zaara:
“I love Veer, but I am caught between love, family, duty and society.”
Raza:
“She is my fiancée. Why should I accept that another man has entered our relationship?”
Each person has a story that makes sense from inside their own world.
That doesn't mean every action is equally justified.
It means understanding someone's perspective is different from agreeing with them.
And perhaps that is the most valuable takeaway from Bajpayee's comment.
There is also something very Manoj Bajpayee about this
He has often been associated with morally complicated characters rather than characters who can be neatly divided into “good” and “bad.” His approach to Raza demonstrates the same philosophy.
Interestingly, Bajpayee recalled that a Pakistani woman once confronted him about his negative role and essentially blamed him for coming between Veer and Zaara. His response was that she wasn't looking at the story from Raza's point of view.
That anecdote actually explains his statement better than the headline does.
He wasn't seriously claiming:
“Shah Rukh Khan is the villain of Veer-Zaara.”
He was saying, in effect:
“If I am Raza, I cannot enter the scene thinking that I am the villain. I have to believe that Veer is the person who has disrupted my life.”
That is character perspective, not a verdict on the film.
And there is one more beautiful irony: Yash Chopra apparently made Bajpayee feel that his small role was as important as the lead roles. Bajpayee later recalled that Chopra treated him with great respect on set and believed audiences would remember Raza.
So perhaps the most interesting way of putting it is:
Every villain is the hero of his own story.
Not necessarily because every villain is secretly good—but because human beings rarely experience themselves as villains.
And that is why Manoj Bajpayee's interpretation of Raza makes us look at Veer-Zaara differently. Change the point of view, and the emotional geometry of the entire story changes.
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