Good work isn’t always recognised...

By the film industry, feels Kay Kay Menon

Kay Kay Menon, one of the most versatile actors in Bollywood, says the industry does not always applaud a good performance. The 51-year-old actor believes it is due to one’s destiny that an artiste gets recognition. “Cinema doesn’t deal with merit and it is a fact of life, we don’t applaud... And what has merit doesn’t become popular anyway, it is a fact and one can’t do much about it. However noted your performance is, it doesn’t matter. It depends on your destiny. Sometimes, something just clicks and it happens to everyone. It is a matter of destiny and luck,” Menon said.

His filmography boasts of notable performances - both in mainstream and the Indie space — with movies like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Black Friday, Sarkar, Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, Life in a... Metro, Gulaal, Haider and The Ghazi Attack among others.

Menon, whose latest film Phamous hit cinema halls last week, says he felt the audience had started recognising him after the release of Ram Gopal Varma’s 2005 blockbuster Sarkar. “Before Sarkar, I used to introduce myself as Kay Kay, the actor and then that got reduced to just Kay Kay as people realised that I am already an actor.

He played Vishnu, a sleazy film producer and eldest son to megastar Amitabh Bachchan’s character Subhash Nagare (Sarkar). “Also, there was this whole influx of people wanting to cast me. This usually happens when an actor has that one notable performance that has made him popular,” he says.

Menon adds if Sarkar did not have big names such as Bachchan and Varma associated with it, then maybe, he would not have become a known figure in the Hindi film industry. “... If big names weren’t part of the film, less number of people would have watched it. They watched the film for big names and they suddenly found a worthwhile actor like me,” he says.