Menon has been living in Mumbai for 12 years and is a veteran of big-ticket plays such as Aladdin and around 20 films such as Rajwade & Sons.Born and raised in Pune, Siddharth Menon became a part of the city’s thriving theatre culture very early. In one of his Instagram posts, he shares that when he was starting out, many people told him that he was wasting his time because theatre was dead.
“Well, now they ask for free tickets,” he says.
In 2008, Menon and a few other young college students formed the Natak Company, a group that presents edgy political plays, such as Geli Ekvees Varsha, which asks “exactly what happened to the young parents who had been involved in liberal, leftist, socialist movements in and after the 1975 Emergency?”
Menon has been living in Mumbai for 12 years and is a veteran of big-ticket plays such as Aladdin and around 20 films such as Rajwade & Sons. On Friday, it was an out-of-the-box film that brought the actor to national attention — he won a Special Mention at the 68th National Awards for a Marathi film, June, in which he plays the lead. For a long time that day, Menon tried to process his emotions. “Winning a national award is out of one’s hand but I am glad it happened for this film,” he says. Excerpts from an interview with the actor:
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What kind of films do you prefer to work in?
I enjoy films that cross over the boundaries, by which I mean that you cannot box them as commercial, small-budget, Hindi or Hinglish. I have had the good fortune of working with people who have made such films.
Why did you take up June?
The film is close to my heart. It is a film that crosses the borders of the country. The tagline is ‘healing in beautiful’ and we tell the story of a small-town boy and the agony he goes through once he comes to a big city. The film deals with bullying and questioning of one’s roots and finding a safe space in another person, very unexpectedly.
How did the film get made?
The journey to make this film was very difficult but extremely fulfilling. We shot it pre-pandemic, in October 2019, and in 18 days because we were on a shoestring budget. None of us charged anything for the film. We all pooled in to make June—and then nothing happened after it was finished. We were itching to show the film as it was a story we believed in. For a whole year, we sat on the film before it, finally, came out on Planet Marathi. The film has won many awards internationally.
Tell us about your role…
The character is very volatile. He is carrying a pang of big guilt within him and is self-harming. I carried that day in and out and it took a lot of me. When something so big happens, you cannot calculate the worth of a film.
What comes next for you?
A series of mine is coming out, called Dharavi Bank, which will have Suniel Shetty and Vivek Oberoi, among others. The other challenging role that I am going to take up next is the musical of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge for Off Broadway. I am in the middle of preparing for the show.
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