Kay Kay Menon

Not to be confused with Indian playback singer KK (singer).

Krishna Kumar Menon (born 2 October 1966^[1]), known professionally as Kay Kay Menon, is an Indian actor who works predominantly in Hindi cinema, and occasionally in Gujarati, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu films. He is best known for his roles in films such as Black Friday (2004), Deewar (2004), Sarkar (2005), Shaurya (2008), Gulaal (2009), Haider (2014), Baby (2015). He has starred in web series such as Special Ops, Farzi, The Railway Men and Citadel: Honey Bunny.

Kay Kay Menon
Menon in 2023
Born	Krishna Kumar Menon (1966-10-02) 2 October 1966 (age 58) Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Education	University of Pune
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1995–present
Spouse	Nivedita Bhattacharya

Early life

Menon was born into a Malayali family in Kozhikode, Kerala and raised in Ambarnath and Pune, Maharashtra, India.^[1] He studied at the St. Joseph High School in Khadki, Pune.^[2] He passed his 10th grade in 1981. He did his Bachelors (Physics) from Mumbai University^[1] and his MBA from Department of Management Sciences (PUMBA) at the University of Pune,^[1] graduating in 1988 with a major in Marketing. Menon's initial focus was working in the advertising industry,^[1] including Kinetic Honda and Marlboro cigarette advertisements in India.

Career

He started his career in theatre productions where he met Nivedita Bhattacharya, whom he married. His first theatre break was opposite Naseeruddin Shah in Feroz Abbas Khan's Mahatma vs Gandhi.^[3]

In the early years of his career, Menon worked on television, with roles in the TV movies Zebra 2 and Last Train To Mahakali. He also appeared in Telefilms of Zee TV Rishtey (Ward no. 6) and Saturday Suspense episodes. He was praised for his role as a young Prime Minister in the Zee TV series Pradhan Mantri (2001), directed by Ketan Mehta. In The Hindu, Sevanti Ninan wrote, "an actor to watch: Kay Kay Menon ... this unusually tall actor who plays the pradhan mantri is a major saving grace"^[4] while in The Tribune, Amita Malik commented, "excellent acting by Menon, who skilfully conveys the physical as well as mental image of the honest politician".^[5]

Menon made his big screen debut with a small role in Naseem (1995), followed in 1999 by the lead role in Bhopal Express,^[3] a movie that went mostly unnoticed. This was the first in a series of initial setbacks in Menon's film career. In the early 2000s, he starred as a wicked rock musician in Anurag Kashyap's debut movie, Paanch, which struggled with censorship and has remained unreleased.^[6][7] Two other movies, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Black Friday, had to wait many years for a release date. Meanwhile, his commercial films Deewar (starring Amitabh Bachchan) and Silsiilay (with Shahrukh Khan) flopped at the box office. It was only in 2005, with the eventual release of the critically acclaimed Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, but with Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar, Menon had his break.^[6] Sarkar earned him a nomination for the Best Performance in a Negative Role at the Filmfare Awards.^{[citation needed]} In The Tribune, Saibal Chatterjee called him "one of Bollywood's finest actors".^[6]

In 2007, he acted in Life in a... Metro, Enemmy (2013), and Rahasya (2015), as an adulterous husband. In 2008, he appeared in Shaurya^[8][9] based on A Few Good Men . His portrayal of a ruthless army brigadier is still talked of among cinema lovers.^[10][11] In 2009, he starred in The Stoneman Murders where he played a police officer on the hunt for the Stoneman serial killer.^[12] He played the role of Dukki Bana in Gulaal.

His role as Khurram Mir in 2014's Haider bagged him a Filmfare and IIFA award for Best Supporting Actor. He played a very crucial role in The Ghazi Attack as a Naval Captain based on an Indian Naval submarine, S21, intercepts a Pakistani submarine, PNS Ghazi, during routine surveillance and thwarts its mission of destroying INS Vikrant in 1971. He played a role as Vikram Singh in 2019's Penalty with co-actor Mohit Nain.

He impressed and gained more popularity with a role as Himmat Singh in 2020's Special Ops - a web series for Hotstar. In 2021, he again played the young version of Himmat Singh (R&AW leading officer) in Special Ops 1.5, the prequel part of Special Ops.

Filmography

• All films are in Hindi, unless otherwise stated.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1995	Naseem	Islamic fundamentalist	Debut film[3]
1999	Bhopal Express	Verma
2002	Chhal	Karan Menon
2003	Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi	Siddharth Tyabji	Released in theaters in 2005[13]
2004	Black Friday	DCP Rakesh Maria	Released in theaters in 2007[14]
	Deewaar	Sohail Miyaan
	Silsiilay	Anwar Ahmed Bhoy
2005	Sarkar	Vishnu Nagare	Nominated—Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role
	Dansh	Mathew
	Main, Meri Patni Aur Woh	Akash
	Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena	Kaif
2006	Corporate	Ritesh Sahani	Nominated—GIFA Award for Best Supporting Actor
	Shoonya	Mahendra Naik
2007	Strangers	Sanjeev Rai
	Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.	Partho Sen
	Life in a... Metro	Ranjit Kapoor	Nominated—IIFA Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role
	Go	Nagesh Rao
2008	Sarkar Raj	Vishnu Nagare
	Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam	Haldi Hasan
	Mumbai Meri Jaan	Suresh
	Via Darjeeling	Ankur Sharma
	Shaurya	Brigadier Rudra Pratap Singh
	Sirf	Gaurav
	Drona	Riz Razaida
2009	The Stoneman Murders	Sanjay Shelar
	Gulaal	Dukey Bana
	Aage se right	Janubhai/Baima Rashidul Kairi
	Sankat City	Guru
2010	Tera Kya Hoga Johnny	Inspector Shashikant Chiple
	Lafangey Parindey	Anna	Cameo
	Benny And Babloo	Benny
2011	Bheja Fry 2	Ajit Talwar
	Bhindi Bazaar	Shroff
2012	Chaalis Chouraasi	Albert Pinto
	Life Ki Toh Lag Gayi	Salman
	Shahid	War saab
2013	Enemmy:	CID Officer Naeem Shaikh
	ABCD: Any Body Can Dance	Jehangir Khan
	Udhayam NH4	ACP Manoj Menon IPS	Tamil film
	Ankur Arora Murder Case	Dr. Viren Asthana
2014	Raja Natwarlal	Vardha Yadav
	Haider	Khurram Meer	Won—Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor[15] Won—IIFA Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role Nominated—BIG Star Entertainment Awards for Most Entertaining Actor in a Thriller Film – Male Nominated—IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor Nominated—Screen Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role Nominated—Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role Nominated—Stardust Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role
2015	Baby	Bilal Khan
	Rahasya	CBI Officer Sunil Paraskar
	Bombay Velvet	Investigative Officer Vishwas Kulkarni
	Singh Is Bliing	Mark
2016	A Flying Jatt	Mr. Rakesh Malhotra
	Saat Uchakkey	Tejpal
2017	The Ghazi Attack	Captain Ranvijay Singh	Telugu and Hindi
2018	Dhaad	Ghelo	Gujarati;[16] released 17 years after being shot
	Vodka Diaries	ACP Ashwini Dixit
	Baa Baaa Black Sheep	ACP Shivraj Naik
	The Dark Side of Life: Mumbai City	Sumit Balsaria
	Phamous	Kadak Singh
	Ek Sangaychay		Marathi film
2019	Penalty	Vikram Singh	Netflix film
2021	Shaadisthan	Tiger Ji/Rajaji	Disney+ Hotstar
2023	Love All	Siddharth Sharma [17]
2025	Metro... In Dino

Television

Year	Show	Episodes	Role
1995-1996	Darr		Inspector Avinash
1999	Star Bestsellers - Zebra 2		Captain Rajeev
1999	Star Bestsellers - Last Train to Mahakali		Sir
1997-99	Saturday Suspense	12(Woh Kaun Thi?), 16(The Assassin), 18(On the Run), 42(Breaking News), 68(Friends), 104(Beyond Truth)	Inspector Vaali James Mathew Aakash(Serial Killer) Amar Rathore Krishna Pandit COP Ankush
2000	Rishtey - Ward No. 6	111	Doctor Rajat
2001	Pradhan Mantri		PM Anirudh Prakash
2005	Time Bomb 9/11		Prime Minister of India
2014	Yudh		Municipal Commissioner

Streaming series

Year	Title	Role	Platform	Notes
2018	The Great Indian Dysfunctional Family	Vikram Ranaut	ALTBalaji
2020	Special OPS	Himmat Singh	Disney Plus Hotstar
2021	Ray	Inderashish[18]	Netflix
	Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story	Himmat Singh	Disney Plus Hotstar
2023	Farzi	Mansoor Dalal	Amazon Prime Video
	Bambai Meri Jaan	Ismail Kadri
	The Railway Men	Iftekaar Siddiqui	Netflix
2024	Shekhar Home	Shekhar Home	JioCinema	[19]
	Murshid	Murshid Pathan	ZEE5	[20]
	Citadel: Honey Bunny	Guru	Amazon Prime Video

Short film(s)

Year	Title
2019	Sparsh
2019	The Last Chapter