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Kay Kay Menon is all set to complete three decades as an actor. The actor’s filmography stands as proof of the remarkable work he has done over the years. Reminiscing about his career, Kay Kay says he and good friends Irrfan Khan and Manoj Bajpayee entered the Hindi film industry when filmmakers didn’t know how to “use” actors, forcing them to take up any work that came their way, resulting in their slow growth.
Recently, in an interview with Sucharita Tyagi, Manoj Bajpayee remarked how he was “discarded” because his contemporaries Irrfan Khan and Kay Kay Menon became the first choice of filmmakers. Reacting to Manoj’s claims, Kay Kay, in an interview with indianexpress.com, said they have been thick friends over the years and would often indulge in long “b**ching sessions” over the phone.
He says, “Manoj, Irrfan, and I, we came around the same time. I don’t think filmmakers knew how to use us, in that sense, because we came at a time when films were different. So we had to settle for playing villains and half-villains here and there. We had to do that all. That’s how the industry is.”
Kay Kay said he lost Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool to his friend Irrfan and got Haider because Manoj didn’t have dates. He says, “But I guess if you are at it, things happen. I don’t believe what Manoj said, because Manoj was the first choice for Haider. He, however, didn’t have dates, and most probably Vishal (Bhardwaj) and Manoj discussed and said ‘Kay Kay ko lete hai (let’s take Kay Kay instead)’. That’s how it happened, ulta hua hai (it is the other way around). Hum logon ke beech mein chalta rehta tha (it kept happening between the three of us), we also talk on the phone, including when Irrfan was alive. We used to talk a lot. We had a different equation, Manoj and I still do. Maqbool, for example, I was supposed to do it, and I could not, so Irrfan did it.”
Kay Kay then spoke about how he, for the longest time, was stuck with the image that he’d only do ‘serious roles’. “I was stuck with it, the whole thing about doing only serious, intense roles. Let me tell you that I can be seriously funny. I have always taken my work seriously but never taken myself seriously, I have never been like, ‘aah, ab meri entry ho rahi hai’,” he states.
Recently, the actor’s performances in Raj and DK’s Farzi with Shahid Kapoor and in Shiv Rawail’s The Railway Men have won him accolades. His Shekhar Home co-star Ranvir Shorey calls him “Chhupa Rustom”.
On being asked why he’s not done a mainstream film for a while, he says, “As long as a film is interesting and doesn’t abuse your senses, it’s fine for me,” reiterating that he is open to mainstream Bollywood films, adding that he doesn’t necessarily believe in ‘realism’. He says, “I have nothing against ‘dhan-ta-dhan films’ (Kay Kay’s version of commercial potboilers). I have nothing against anti-gravity films but my only problem is that as long as you make it believable, I am there to watch. If I feel like watching it, then I don’t care if it is science fiction or whatever. The idea is to make it as believable as possible so that you can even make science fantasy, don’t betray your logic of that world,” he adds.
Slamming the testosterone-heavy films with loose logic being made today, he says, “So if I hit the floor and a car goes up, perhaps it doesn’t happen on the earth, it happens perhaps somewhere on Mars or somewhere. I cannot believe that. If you give me logic on how Superman is so powerful and would be able to do that then I am fine with it. There has to be some semblance, it shouldn’t be bachkana (childish). It should have some intelligence to it,” concludes Kay Kay.
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