EXCLUSIVE | 'Shekhar Home' actor Kay Kay Menon on comparisons with Sherlock Holmes: 'It has nothing to do with him, the whole set-up is from...'

Kay Kay Menon is an actor who needs to be seen more often, and if not more often, he needs to be given stories and characters that do justice to his volcanic talent. Sarkar, Paanch, Gulaal, Black Friday, Life In A Metro, and Shaurya are some of his finest works till date. His new show called Shekhar Home is now streaming on JioCinema. And he spoke about it in an exclusive interview with Firstpost:

Edited excerpts from the interview:

We have actors like Ranvir Shorey and Rasika Dugal in the show as well. Does that become the cherry on the cake?

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It’s the entire thing, the entire thing, why the cherry? The entire thing is the cake itself. You have some accomplished and very fine actors in Ranvir and Rasika. We also have actors like Kaushik Sen, Kirti Kulhari. So there are some fine actors in this whole, ensemble. And, I think that makes a lot of difference to how you ultimately, transform the script on the screen. So all the contributions have been invaluable.

As an actor, how much of the, preparation is your own, and how much do you look for in the director side? 

It’s a combination. There’s no yardstick of that kind. I can’t say x percent is this, x percent is that. It’s a whole, collaborative art, as I say. So a lot of things that, you know, you contribute. A lot of things the director contributes. A lot of things you take from the text. So, so things like that happen, it’s a whole it’s a kind of a mixture of many things. So, it’s difficult to really say how much. All I can say is that even that is not there, then we would not be able to accomplish anything.

You have a really magnetic screen, presence which we have seen in films like Sarkar, Paanch, Gulaal, Black Friday, Life In A Metro, and Shaurya. So, what has kept these films and characters relevant even today?

There’s something called truth of acting. So if you’re truthful, to that persona, to that emotion, to everything else, then I think it’s long lasting. And I’ve always believed that my take on acting is that my work should somehow outlive me. You know? That’s how I try and, do my work. I don’t do my work just for the, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you know. So for me, my work has to outlive me.  An architect would like to to have his building even after his death. And see, like, what a fantastic piece of architecture is made. So similarly, in every profession. So that’s the that’s been the motive behind. So I try my best do it as truthfully as possible, that performance as that character.

How different is this character from Sherlock Holmes?

Justin, Benedict Cumberbatch played Sherlock. You know, Johnny Barrett played just Sherlock. So I’m not playing Sherlock at all. I’m playing Shailesh. Shailesh is a very Indian person, and also the the the whole setup is is, from the nineties, early nineties. And it’s also about a a very sleepy town called, Lonpur, which is represented in this whole entire series.

So you don’t have mobile phones. You don’t have all those things. So, you know, it’s that kind of sense. And, it’s nothing to do with Sherlock. It’s to do with, Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, which has been the inspiration for all these stories. So we have kind of that. And I don’t think anybody else has played. And so that’s what is unique about it.