Luke Kenny

Luke Kenny is an Indian VJ, critic, director, producer and actor. Identified as one of India's emerging stars, he is very popular with audiences, for his chatty hosting style and acting.

Early life

Born in Kolkata on the 14th of June, he was moved to Mumbai when he was only 3 months old. Brought up by his Grandparents and father, who were all musicians. his musical education began very young.

He started his career as a solo dancer in 1989, having been greatly influenced by Michael Jackson, and won many college dance competitions, including Malhar at St. Xavier's College and Kaleidoscope at Sophia College in Bombay(Mumbai)

Spotted at one such competition, he joined, as a Chorus Dancer and Assistant Choreographer, with Arshad Warsi's dance team from 1990 to 1992.

In 1991 he dropped out of college to play the role of Jesus Christ in a musical interpretation of The Passion of the Christ.

During 1993–1995, he worked as a DJ with Audiophile, a DJ consolidation company, playing as many as three clubs in one night! He was mentored by [DJ Whosane!, Hussain Babai and [DJ Freeatmah, Asad Zaidi. DJing remains one of his great loves as he enjoys bringing his brand and style and selection of music to the people.

Success (1995 - )

In 1995 he became India's First Indian Male VJ on Channel V. Hugely popular, he is still remembered fondly.

He then also acted in Vikram Kapadia's production of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. He played the role of Mercutio.

Then came a short role in Kaizad Gustad's movie, "Bombay Boys", playing the leader of an attitude-filled rock band that consisted of Model/DJ Tarun Shahani and Indian rock band Pentagram's Randolph Correa. The film also starred, Rahul Bose, Alexander Gifford, Naveen Andrews, Tara Deshpande, Roshan Seth and Naseeruddin Shah.

In 1998, he became the head of Music Programming and Artist relations for Channel V As of February 2008, he has moved on.

In early 2005 he returned to Channel V as the face of the hugely popular show 'Luke's After Hours', which featured an unparalleled selection of music videos specially chosen by him. His choice of music won him great critical acclaim and ran on the channel for three years.

In later 2005, Kenny directed and produced his first feature film "13th Floor", starring Purab Kohli(My Brother, Nikhil) and Sandhya Mridul(Page 3). This was indias first Digitaly shot and released film. It was shot on digital video in six days flat. The film which is 80 minutes in length features only two actors in the smallest space of an elevator. The film was released on March 17 2006 under his own banner, 'Kenny Films Pvt. Ltd'. It played at Fame Cinemas and Fun Republic Theatres for a week. The screenings were well attended, given the minimal publicity and lack of financial support required for the publicity of the film.

These are the festvals in/ for which the film was selected :

* Tromafling International Film Festival, Edinburgh 2005
* Temecula International Film Festival, California 2005
* Sports Movies TV India International Film Festival 2006
* International Film Festival of India 2006
* Cape Town Bollywood Film Festival, South Africa 2007

In 2006, Kenny directed 3 music videos under his banner Kenny Films Pvt. Ltd.
* Dil (Artist : Sidharth, Producer: Nisha Kreation)
* Humein Jeene Do (Artist: Tauseef & Cheryl, Producer: Film Foundation of India)
* Kyon(paanch tatva) (Artist: Sidharth, Producer: Nisha Kreation)

He played Rob,in the hindi film Rock On!! which was directed by Abhishek Kapoor (Aryan), starring Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli. It was produced by Farhan's company Excel Entertainment. Titled "Rock On!!", it was marked for a release on the 29th of August 2008. Rock on opened to excellent reviews, garnering ratings of up to four stars (of five), with Kenny receiving rave reviews for his performance as a member of the movie's core band.

He writes a weekly music column in the Hindustan Times supplement HT Cafe, which appears every friday. It is called If I May Say So

He recently signed on as Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone India and pens his thoughts on Music in a column called 'LukeBox' he has also started a second column called Gig-A-Bites which talks about his experiences of various live concerts around the country.

In February 2008, Luke moved out from his position as Head of Programming at Channel V, and is now an artiste at large, utilising his new freedom from the corporate world to pursue his artistic ambitions of Music, Film and Performance.

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2219430/ IMDB entry]