Kay Kay Menon: Acting is more about restraint than exposition

Prime Video’s upcoming show, Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, brings forth a wave of nostalgia. Set in a fictional government school in Delhi, it features a laid-back headmaster, Gyaneshwar Tripathi, played by Kay Kay Menon, who tries to add order to its dysfunctionality. With a strict Hindi teacher feared by all, a Maths expert told to conduct Physics classes, and students creating problems for all, the show exhibits an alluring familiarity. That’s what attracted Kay Kay Menon to its world. Reminiscing about his school days, the actor says that he was drawn to science as a child. “I loved Physics, so later I did my graduation in that,” he says.

Acting, too, had made its place in his life early on, as he recalls doing stage plays as a nine-year-old. “It came easy to me. I used to enjoy that process. But I didn’t know that it was something I had been given. Only much later in life did I finally realise that I was enjoying acting more than everything else I was doing, including my MBA. So, I went back to acting.” Menon adds that it was his ‘calling’ which he realised late. “I feel that everyone has two or three talents. You may have a talent for architecture, and you want to become an actor. It’s a desire when your talent lies elsewhere. So, I realised late that it was acting that gave me joy rather than management or advertising.”

For Naveen Kasturia, who plays a counsellor in the series, school life was filled with pressures of studying. Alongside, despite not being allowed to watch films, Naveen recalls seeing a lot of them, which left a deep impact on him. “I think watching movies influenced me more than my school life. School shaped my character, yes, but films generated my interest in this world,” he says. “My friends would call me a film encyclopedia as I knew the names of music directors and dialogues of films. I was a geek in the 90s, but now, I am not. Sometimes I forget my own dialogues on set,” smiles Naveen.

The actor brings a touch of vulnerability to his performances that creates a striking resonance, whether it is in TVF’s Aspirants or Pitchers. When asked about his process of building a performance, Naveen maintains that it's not as “calculative”. “I just try to follow the script and collaborate with the director. You are not creating anything in isolation. So many people are working with us on our characters. All of that comes together,” he says.

Naveen brings that modesty even in his performance in Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya, where his character remains serious as comical things keep happening around him. On the other hand, it's Menon’s character who has quirks that can bring out a laugh. Director Himank Gaur says he wanted to keep the characters real to make the humour work. He brings up the importance of rhythm in comedy. “The delivery shouldn’t become mechanical. It has to contain a certain flow, which is up to the actors to decide. It is actually difficult to explain how comedy works, but I feel it should never be stiff. Every scene has a certain flow and tempo. If that is figured out while acting, then the joke that is written on paper will translate,” he explains.

Sharing his thoughts on being part of a comedy, Menon says, “I am okay with humour, but I don’t think I can really be funny, which is a different thing altogether. For instance, actors like Govinda or Jim Carrey can create impromptu moments which can be funny. I don’t think I have the calibre to do that. For me, humour has to be in the script, which I can then bring out through improvisations. If its not there, I cannot pop something out of my own.”

Menon’s filmography, however, is spread across different genres, where he has essayed characters with darker shades and complexity. How does he work around bringing out different emotions without repeating shades of a character he has played before? “You just stick to reading the script a number of times and restrain yourself from bringing anyone else apart from the character you are playing. With experience, it gets easier to shut off other taps that will flow from you,” he says. “Acting is more about restraint than exposition. You can easily get into illustrative acting, which is not the right way. The idea is to restrict yourself within the parameters of the text and then perform.”

The actor, who has now been in the industry for over three decades, says his process has improved over the years. “My way of looking at a performance has changed. I don’t like ‘smart performances’, where smartness creeps into an act. I want the purity of the character to come out instead,” he says, recalling an instance from his early days, when he was still adapting to acting for camera after having worked in plays. During the shoot of a pilot episode of a television serial, Menon came across a book in the green room. “I don’t like to read books on acting; they are boring. I like autobiographies as they give a scent of the set,” he says. However, he picked up that book casually and got struck by what was written on the first page.

“The quote said, ‘The camera is like your girlfriend. Never try to impress it’. That’s when I got to know that cinema acting is entirely different and the camera can see through your pretence. The camera will automatically get impressed if you are true to what you are doing. So, for me, I enter; I don’t make an entry,” Menon says. That’s what he has been trying to do since then in order to maintain that sense of authenticity in his performances. “I have failed more than I have succeeded. But that’s how the process is,” he says. Fittingly, even as he plays a headmaster, Menon remains a lifelong student of acting.

And if what you say is true, then there’s glory even in your failures, Mr. Menon.

Adarsh Baal Vidyalaya will be available to stream on Prime Video from July 24