The wall you see in front of me…this is a wall of underdogs,” Furqan Qureshi tells Icon.

On an off-white wall, directly in line with Qureshi’s eye-line, hang big and small photographs of celebrities in vivid splashes of colour, and shades of black and white, and sepia.

There is Michael Shumacher dressed in red overalls matching with his Formula One car, Imran Khan laid back on a comfy chair, Naseeruddin Shah making a silly face, a young pouting Marlon Brando from A Street Car Named Desire, a crooning Sonu Nigam with overgrown hair at a concert, an evil-looking Kevin Spacey from The House of Cards sitting in an Abe Lincoln-like posture, a close-shot of Bryan Cranston as Breaking Bad’s Walter White, Michael Jackson, Shah Rukh Khan, Usain Bolt, Allama Iqbal, Mike Tyson, Eminem, Albert Einstein, Nicholas Tesla, the man who made the Tesla car — Elon Musk, and Hasan Nisar (yes, you read it right).

“It’s a wall of who’s who of success, who were once thought of as good-for-nothings,” says Qureshi.

Actor Furqan Qureshi was once a constant staple on television — he had three series running at the same time. There was a reason he took on so much. But then he faced burn-out. How does he see himself now?

“I am sure you’ve been in houses where you’ve seen that person’s own pictures, shot in eight different angles, on walls. I feel that these people indulge in self-love. I don’t do that. I don’t like myself a lot, to be very honest. I want to see people who have been successful in life.

“Many-a-time I wonder, if they can do it, why can’t I? I mean, they’re human, like me. Their hearts beat, like mine. If you strike them on the face, they would feel pain. They’re normal human beings. But what did they have that made them excel? I think it’s their passion and perseverance. If you have these qualities, then you’ve got it made.”

One might think that this young actor might have got it made — he certainly doesn’t think so — but he is comfortable enough now to think he deserves a bit of a rest.

Qureshi has been a constant staple on television. At one time, you couldn’t turn a channel without seeing him. He had three series running at the same time. But it wasn’t always like this.

The actor recognised for Raqs-i-Bismil, Mere Paas Tum Ho, Aulaad and Bharaas, like his idols in the photos, had a long, hard struggle to get where he is today. He had to change what he calls his “wrapper” — he was a tall, lanky youngster, and nobody would give him acting jobs.

Today, he is called by channel executives and well-known directors. However, once upon a time, his circle was limited to paan-chewing, small-time assistant directors and producers, whom he expertly — and quite effortlessly — mimics with an awkward and upsetting mix of pain and parody.

There is sincerity, fluidity of pace, and a bit of a practice to how Qureshi tells his backstory. One can hear versions of it on YouTube interviews, and one assumes he has told it quite often to people. Yet, at the same time, what you hear sounds unpretentious and heart-rending.

I learn of his maternal grandfather — who was the deputy governor at the State Bank of Pakistan; his father — a general manager at a reputed bank; how his family shifted to Sri Lanka in 1999, came back to Pakistan in 2003 after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, when the bank his father worked for merged with another; and how the family, who had sold their house when they left the country, had to live on rent because the property value skyrocketed.

Despite their somewhat lavish lifestyle (they weren’t swimming in money, but they were well-off), what the family didn’t know was that they were living hand-to-mouth.

When Qureshi’s father passed away in 2009, they learned that they were broke. “I had just done my A-levels, and I learned that everything costs money.”

Qureshi thinks, and then thanks his lucky stars for his two elder sisters, whom he credits for supporting his impetuous youthful days. The young boy of 53kg, whose clothes hung on him as if they were on a hanger, saw VJs on television and thought to himself: “I think I can do this. Obviously, I can speak angrezi [English] well enough. So I thought I could do what they were doing.”

Success came long after he had joined and left a job at a prestigious call centre (he felt suffocated there, he says) and he would go anywhere at the drop of a hat for auditions.

“If I got even a forwarded message for auditions, I would run to it,” he says, when we talk about whether he studied acting (he didn’t) and why he thought he could make it as an actor without any connections.

“At the time, I didn’t know if I could do it better, but I could do it like the rest of the actors were doing it.”

The breakthrough audition came from the now defunct Aag TV’s hit series Dreamers.

“Why does it look like you were rich once,” Azfar Ali, the show’s director asked Qureshi. “I was under-groomed with long hair and my clothes appeared ajeeb [strange] but I talked like [a well-educated college kid].

“When you’re hungry, you do strange things. My audition was to scream. I screamed so loud that the people in the next room turned to look at me.”

The show and the character he played — a tense youth called Agha — was a hit. When the cast used to visit universities, the crowd would go nuts and Qureshi would think: “How can I drag producers to these functions. How can I tell them to make money off me?”

The show came out in 2009 and, despite its success, Qureshi didn’t get further work till 2014, when the newly launched Hum Sitaray cast him as a cancer patient for a show called 100 Din Ki Kahani. As luck would have it, Qureshi was still skin and bones at the time, so the role — a full-fledged lead where he nabbed a nomination — was custom-made for him.

“The first cheque I got, I bought a mixer grinder,” the actor exclaims. “Aabis Raza [the director] would get angry at me. I should have stayed thin, but I gained weight as the series progressed. This was my only savari [starring role], I told him. I needed to gain weight.”

Qureshi feared that he may lose the opportunity if drastic measures were not taken immediately.

“Because I had seen bankruptcy, I told myself ‘Dude, you can’t go back.’ The fear was more painful than being blasted by a director. A director can spit on my face and it’s okay because one person is spitting on me. It’s better than being spit on by everybody. When you are broke, even the vegetable vendor spits on your face when you can’t pay him.”

Qureshi doesn’t complain much when it comes to acting. The only minor gripe he has is with the hours he has to put in, and not the people.

“You do so many scenes in one day that you get tired. Creative differences are not an actor’s job. I’m a director’s pet. If I’m told to stand on top of a sofa and say a line, I’ll do it,” he says.

Diving neck deep into work for years eventually took its toll. “I was like ‘Take a bit of a gap, work on yourself. Thorra fit ho jao, thorri body banalo, thorra saans le lo’ [Get in shape, work on your body, breathe a little],” he explains with a sigh. So he did.

A bit rested, Qureshi is reading scripts again now. “One of them is a mega cast play,” he says.

So the big question is: is the actor being selective now, a term he had a bit of a problem with in the long conversation we had.

“I don’t like making sweeping statements,” Qureshi says. “You don’t know at all. You never know, that ‘I will do this and I will not do this’. A few weeks from now, who knows, I might end up doing everything, like I did these last few years.”

Maybe Furqan Qureshi will, maybe he won’t. At least one thing is certain: he’s in it for the long haul, and that, too, happily by choice, with little to no grievances.

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 2nd, 2023