She sits across me, a dainty, beautiful girl with long hair and wide eyes, leaning forward as she laughs.

Over the span of her five-odd-years-long career, Komal Meer has aligned herself with top-tier TV production houses and been recognised in dramas that have hauled in top ratings. The future looks bright for her, but it is refreshing that she is yet to become politically correct to the point of insipidity, like so many of her peers.

Komal is young, ambitious, very well-loved but also has a self-deprecating sense of humor and a penchant for dealing out honest truths.

“I think I am all cried out thanks to my recent TV roles,” she quips to Icon. “I am literally out of tears now.”

The Komal I’m meeting is vastly different from some of her most popular recent TV drama roles. On TV, she’ll be the wide-eyed innocent heroine, countering the atrocities of the world with a virtuous tearful smile, dealing with the machinations of her in-laws or her toxic husband or her obnoxious boyfriend with the patience of a saint.

She’s young, she’s beautiful and she’s ambitious. But rising star Komal Meer is also bored. Bored with the one-dimensional, suffering waif roles she keeps getting offered in TV dramas. Thankfully, she has a sense of humour and, unlike so many of her peers, has yet to become politically correct to the point of insipidity

In reality, while she still looks like a veritable Disney princess, she is a new-age star, confident, independent, with plans and dreams. She recognises that she needs to diversify towards newer drama roles, but also pragmatically realises that it is important to be seen regularly in mass-friendly dramas in order to work her way up the acting ladder.

“The audience loves to see a submissive damsel-in-distress being rescued by a hero,” Komal shrugs, describing some of her most popular acting roles, “and this has always been the case. But even though such stories are popular, there is also a niche audience that is building up who want to see other stories, perhaps see women as stronger and more independent.

“I think we need to tell more of those stories because they can inspire so many women who form a major chunk of the TV audience. Television can be very powerful in changing mindsets.”

Cry, but make it different

Have any such roles of modern strong women come her way yet?

“Honestly, no,” she shakes her head. “Somehow, most directors envision me as the innocent heroine. I have just wrapped up Rah-i-Junoon,” she refers to her drama opposite actor Danish Taimoor, currently on air on Hum TV, “and I am yet to sign on to a new project. I just don’t feel excited right now. I don’t want to play the same kind of character again and again and I keep requesting directors and producers to offer me a role that is different.

“But still, every script I get is more or less the same. I can predict what will happen next even without reading the later episodes. People have sometimes commented that I learn my dialogues very quickly — it’s because the dialogues are usually all the same — every drama has the same basic story!”

I feel inclined towards consoling her: her career is still in its early days and more unique roles are likely to eventually find their way to her.

“Yes, of course,” she agrees, “and I’m lucky that I’m getting so many offers at this point in my career. Right now, though, I just want to clear my head before I take on the next project. It might not be a very different role,” she grins while warning me, “I might just sign on to something out of pressure.”

Would she sign on to another Ramazan drama, I ask, referring back to her drama with 7th Sky Entertainment, Tere Aanay Se. “At this point, no,” she says. “I had a lot of fun acting in Tere Aanay Se. My director, Zeeshan Ahmed, co-actor Muneeb Butt and I would be laughing all the time and the entire cast was so friendly. Ramazan dramas are shot in one go, every day, unlike regular dramas where there are breaks between shooting spells after 15 days or so. You end up getting really involved in the story.

In dramas, you’re just usually acting on cue. The shoot is linear and you can’t really connect with the characters, because they haven’t been written with much depth. So I can understand my character and play with emotions on a surface level, but I am never able to connect with it deeply.”

“At the same time, there is too much pressure while acting in a Ramazan drama. There are multiple dramas, of very similar genres, airing on different channels simultaneously and audiences and critics end up comparing them. You can’t help but begin worrying about ratings and, right now, I just don’t want to handle that kind of pressure.”

So, what’s your dream role, I ask her.

“A role in which the character goes through a journey which begins at one point and ends at another. Like Gangubai,” she refers to a character recently played by Bollywood actor Aalia Bhatt.

“There was a story to tell in that movie, a journey which showed how the character progressed. I would love to play a role like that — I think more than half the actresses in Pakistan would! — where you can construct a graph in your head of how the character progresses and become completely immersed in the emotional evolution.”

She continues: “In dramas, you’re just usually acting on cue. The shoot is linear and you can’t really connect with the characters, because they haven’t been written with much depth. So I can understand my character and play with emotions on a surface level, but I am never able to connect with it deeply.”

Komal proceeds to elaborate on how she plays with her characters’ emotions — it’s quite eye-opening! “Female characters in TV dramas are expected to cry very frequently and I initially found it very difficult because, personally, I am not someone who is comfortable with crying in front of people.

“Now, though, my biggest challenge is to cry differently from the way I did with my last character. In Rah-i-Junoon, if my character is having an emotional breakdown, it can’t be the same as the way Dur-i-Adan (one of her most popular characters so far) cried in Qalandar.

“It’s come to the point that, if my friends are crying in front of me, I start observing how they are doing it, how many times they are hiccupping,” she begins to laugh. “Similarly, I want to get angry in different ways in every drama.”

Behind the scenes

What does she think has been her most well-recognised role to date?

“Within the industry, I think that playing Roshan Ara in the drama Badshah Begum really got me noticed,” she says. “The drama had a huge cast and I got to meet a lot of people, sit down for interviews during the media promotions and perhaps people saw my potential, which is why I started getting more acting offers. From the audience’s point of view, I think Qalandar changed the game for me very unexpectedly.”

Which character of hers do fans usually refer to when they meet her? She dwells upon this.

“It varies from city to city, country to country. I was recently in London for the IPPAs [International Pakistan Prestige Awards] and the people I met there had seen quite a few of my projects — Qalandar, Badshah Begum and my Ramazan drama Tere Aanay Se.

“I had actually been hesitant about walking down the IPPA red carpet. This was my first red carpet appearance and there were so many other stars at the event with me. I figured that no one would recognise me and I would quickly get out of the car and make a beeline for the entrance. But then, people started calling out my name! Older women kissed my hands, younger girls were calling out the names of my characters and it was truly the happiest point of my career!”

Komal continues: “In Lahore, I think Qalandar was watched avidly and, even though the drama ended a while back, so many people still refer to me as Dur-i-Adan. Grown men will come to me and ask me for selfies and then, comment in confusion, ‘Dur-i-Adan, aap tau bilkul different lag rahi hain’ [Dur-i-Adan, you look completely different].”

She shrugs and laughs. “I don’t know what to do then — perhaps tie my hair in a braid and cover my head!”

And hold a jharroo (broom), I suggest, referring to the domestic duties of the unfortunate Dur-i-Adan.

“Yes!” she nods. “I signed on to Qalandar because it was going to be a different experience for me. We were going to shoot in a village and I was going to be playing this unglamorous character who would be taking care of cattle and sweeping the floor. I didn’t dwell upon whether the drama would be a hit or not, but I felt that the role would challenge me as an actor. And it did, even though it was very difficult!”

How was it difficult, I’m curious to know.

“For one, we shot the drama in the summers in a village near Lahore. It was very hot and, every day, it would take us an hour to reach the set and then an hour to get back to the hotel. Also, all the sweeping and cleaning that Dur-i-Adan had to do — I had to do it for real, in multiple takes!” She smiles.

“There is this one scene, in which my character has to eat leftover food, and I figured that we would cheat our way through it. But my director Saima Waseem actually got the food that had been left over from our lunch that day and said that I had to eat it. I tried to pretend, not actually eating the gravy, but she stopped me and told me that I had to do it right. So, I did! I was on the verge of crying — the pain you saw on TV was real!”

She continues, “In another scene, the actress playing my aunt had to slap me and she actually did so. I started crying, with hiccups, and after the scene, I remember calling my mother and saying that I didn’t want to act anymore!

“In retrospect, though, Qalandar was a great experience. I got to do so many different things and the appreciation that I got from the audience made it all worth it.”

Have there been times when she has requested for changes in a drama’s script or in a scene because she is not comfortable with it?

“Yes, that does happen and actors then discuss changes with the director,” she says. “In Rah-i-Junoon, there was this one scene in which my character is confronting another female, who plays a negative role, and the dialogues were so derogatory that I just couldn’t get myself to say them. I talked to my director Syed Ahmed Kamran and he allowed me to rewrite what I could say instead.

“Still, why are writers even writing like this? Sometimes I read a script and I wonder how we could still be discussing these topics in this day and age!”

She adds, “At these times, social media acts as a great tool. Even if a director doesn’t agree with you, he or she is alert to the dangers of a social media backlash. The first thing I say when I feel that a scene needs to be changed is how it’s going to cause a social media controversy. Usually, the scene gets changed promptly!” She laughs.

The race to success

This leads me to observe that she isn’t very active on social media. “I’m not. I just don’t like posting much. Perhaps it’s because I’m hesitant to let people in on who I am and in my personal life,” she muses.

“Also, I feel that, once I get involved in social media, I’ll get stuck in this constant race where I’ll always be worrying about my next post, my likes, my comments, the number of followers I have. I don’t even do too many digital collaborations. I am too lazy to do them.

“I’m not saying that I’m on the right path. We live in a time when people get cast on the basis of their social media followers and earn so much through digital work. I know that I need to work on my social media but right now, it doesn’t come easily to me. My family’s always telling me that I need to post more consistently — my mother even says that I shouldn’t have become an actress when I take things so lightly!”

It seems that her mother is deeply invested in her career. “She is,” Komal nods. “When I first started out, while my family and I still lived in Islamabad, my mother would accompany me to drama sets and be there all day long. This was after I had participated in the Miss Veet Pakistan competition.

“I had auditioned randomly and was just trying out acting at the time because I thought that it was something different, something fun. My father had his apprehensions, but my mother was excited. She’s an absolute TV drama enthusiast. She has always been brutally honest about my work and my harshest critic. I have three younger brothers — she’s the only one who watches my dramas.”

Is she facing the typical pressure from her family of getting married? “Just a bit, from my mother, now that some of my friends have gotten married,” says Komal. “But I have told her that I wouldn’t want to get married right now.”

She continues: “As an actor, I think that it would be difficult to be in a relationship with another actor. The work timings are really tough and if both the husband and wife are acting, when will they get the time for each other?”

She adds, “Actors can be pretty self-obsessed also. If the man I’m with is constantly obsessed with his own looks, who’s going to compliment me on mine?”

I find this hilarious. Speaking about looks, how much does she think hers have helped in getting her roles?

“Looks do help,” she agrees, “but I wish that the focus wouldn’t be so much on beauty. In content from around the world, you see people connecting with everyday characters rather than glamorous heroes and heroines. In Pakistan, though, there is an obsession with beautiful faces.

“Personally, I am not very much into make-up. I wouldn’t even bother with a touch-up before I come on screen. But I have come to realise that, for the audience, it’s very important.”

So, it helps, then, that Komal fits the bill within Pakistan’s unwavering standards for beauty; fair skin, long hair, big eyes. She is unwilling to agree. “I don’t really like the way I look on screen,” she confesses, “so I prefer to focus on my acting.”

That’s a good thing to focus on. Komal Meer, in these initial years of her career, may be waiting for more interesting roles to come her way. She is also, however, headlining the ratings race with the dramas that she does sign on to, winning over the audience as the guileless naïve heroine.

And she’s honing her skills, keeping her passion alive by figuring out new ways of emoting on screen. It’s a very promising start!

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 10th, 2023