‘Kennedy’ interview: Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone on stepping into Anurag Kashyap’s neo-noir thriller

Actors Rahul Bhatt and Sunny Leone open up on essaying complex characters in Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Kennedy’, all set to stream on Zee5

It’s not an Anurag Kashyap film if it doesn’t face a release delay. The filmmaker has battled distribution hurdles and censorship delays for years with a mix of candid and provocative approaches. His film, Kennedy,is set for a mainstream releasethree long years after its 2023 Cannes premiere. In the last three years, the film travelled the world, participating in significant festivals. Now, the mass audience in India can finally catch the neo-noir crime thriller.

“Of course, there was some amount of anxiety,” actor Rahul Bhat tells The Hindu about the long wait for the movie’s worldwide release. “However, it’s stayed alive due to festivals.” Bhat’s co-star, Sunny Leone, is excited as well for the movie’s upcoming OTT premiere. “I was reminded over and over again that every film will find its home, and I am very excited that this film has found one. I am excited, and no longer feel bad about the delayed release.”

The world of Kennedy is set in Kashyap’s trademark zone: raw and unapologetic. The thriller, set to drop on ZEE5 on February 20, highlights the systematic corruption of the Mumbai police and jolts you with the consequences of the normalisation of murder.

At the centre of the gritty story is Uday Shetty a.k.a Kennedy, a former cop-turned-hitman essayed by Bhat. It’s the pandemic in India, and Uday, mostly covered in a mask, shows no remorse as he displays qualities of a near-perfect hired killer. Look closely, and you sense the troubled past of the protagonist. Bhat calls playing an emotionally distant character an “internal performance.”

“Kennedy carries the trauma in his body. It’s in his walk, gaze, and stillness. Once I got into the headspace of the character, it was hard to step out of it. The movie reflects a nocturnal, decaying space. It shows what happens when survival becomes a moral compromise,” says the actor.

Long after the filming was done, Kennedy still lingered in Bhat. “I don’t believe in switching off instantly,” he admits. “Detachment isn’t a button to activate immediately. I allow the character to leave me gradually. I acknowledge the completion of its journey before letting go of the character.”