Manoj Bajpayee, who is playing a gay character in Hansal Mehta's Aligarh, states that it is the toughest film in his 21 years of career. Poles different with the sexual orientation of homosexual and heterosexual, but Manoj says that both the poles feel the same way in emotions.

Upon questioning about the censor issue of the film, Manoj says, "We're not making a film which is out to shock. Aligarh is an honest film, made with a lot of conviction. I'm sure neither the censors nor anybody else will not find anything objectionable about it."

Based on a real-life character of a professor from Aligarh Muslim University, who was suspended a few months before his retirement after he was caught having consensual sex with a rickshawallah on spy-cam at Bareilly.

Manoj also admits his rejection of the hindi remaking of Telugu crime satire, a Shyam Gopal Varma film to play a character based on his mentor Ram Gopal Varma. "Yes, the role did come to me. It's not a caricature of Ramu but analyses the genius of a mind like his. I think the original was made with his consent. But we couldn't agree creatively on certain aspects of the script so I won't be doing the Hindi remake," says Manoj.