Kay Kay Menon has been a part of the entertainment industry for close to three decades. The actor has been part of some of the most critically-acclaimed films as well as big blockbusters, making a name for himself in the process as one of the finest actors of his generation. But it wasn’t always like that. Before his breakthrough in the early 2000s, Kay Kay was active but still unknown. One film changed that.
Ask him about the one role that changed his life, Kay Kay responds, “My personal life didn’t change. That remains the same but my my professional life changed with one film.”
He looks back at Ram Gopal Varma’s Sarkar, one of his earliest breakthrough roles, and says, “There was a time when I had to introduce myself professionally in this industry that ‘I’m Kay Kay, I am an actor’. Then Sarkar happened. After that, it was all different. After that, it was just: ‘I am Kay Kay’. I no longer had to introduce myself as an actor again. It became known that this guy is an actor.”
Sarkar was released in theatres in 2005. A take on The Godfather and somewhat influenced by Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s life, the film was a critical and commercial success. It starred Amitabh Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan in lead roles with Kay Kay playing the senior Bachchan’s anger-prone son. The film was the first high-profile success for the actor who had appeared in films like Black Friday, Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi, and Deewar till then. Sarkar paved the way for bigger roles for Kay Kay. The actor adds, tongue-in-cheek, “Ever since, people also think I am an actor.”
Since then, Kay Kay has gone on to appear in big films like Corporate, Shaurya, and won laurels for his performances in critical successes like Haider, and web series Special Ops, Farzi, and Bambai Meri Jaan. He will be next seen in the Netflix limited series The Railway Men.
