Long time no see, Ahad Raza Mir.

Aside from ubiquitous commercials, the actor was last seen on Pakistani TV screens two-odd years ago, in the hit Ramazan sitcom Hum Tum. He had been Adam Sultan, the wisecracking, sarcastic, good-looking boy-next-door that the heroine, along with a considerable TV audience, had fallen in love with. But then, leaving his audience starry-eyed, Ahad stepped away from TV dramas for a bit.

This doesn’t mean that he wasn’t busy. A large chunk of his time was devoted to the shooting of the second season of BBC One’s World On Fire, where he was featured on the main promotional poster along with the rest of the quite illustrious cast. The series was well-received internationally but it is yet to be streamed on an easily accessible OTT site in Pakistan, which is why it hasn’t been seen much locally.

Another few months were dedicated to the filming of Jo Bachay Hain Sang Samait Lo (JBHSSL), the long-titled, long-anticipated series produced by MD Productions, which will mark Pakistan’s debut on Netflix originals.

And Ahad certainly wasn’t out of sight, out of mind. He would be seen at the odd celebrity soiree or awards ceremony. You’d bump into him at an industry dinner. Also — much to his dismay, because Ahad has always been very private — he tends to surface now and again in gossipy conversations on X (formerly Twitter). A picture of his or a past interview turns up, leading to conjecture amongst fans.

While Ahad Raza Mir may not have worked full-throttle in Pakistani dramas for some time — he claims he doesn’t want to run out of the faces he has as an actor — the adoration his fans have for him continues to be immense. It also means that his upcoming projects are always highly anticipated

Ahad, I know, would rather have people talk about his work. “There is the work that we do, acting, performing, and then there’s the world of show business that we are inevitably part of. Personally, I feel that I am not exciting, while the characters that I play are.

“Living the part, being Amaan or Adam Sultan or Dr Asfandyar or the ones that are coming up, that’s what I get a high from. I want the focus to be on that rather than on my private life, which really isn’t that interesting!”

This observation of Ahad’s has me laughing, having seen the furore that his private life is capable of instigating on social media. He grins and shrugs on seeing my reaction. Regardless of what the world at large might think, I am inclined to believe that Ahad really does find his work more interesting than his own personal space.

‘The work’

In the eight years that I have known him — ever since he made his debut with the hugely successful Yaqeen Ka Safar — Ahad has always been deeply passionate about his career. There have been interviews where he has sat across from me dissecting the psyche of a character in great detail. He’ll recount memorable dialogues from the script and he tends to remember the names of all the characters that he has played. Year after year, I have met Ahad, interviewed him at length, and delved into the nuances of yet another hit hero that he has enacted.

Living the part, being Amaan or Adam Sultan or Dr Asfandyar or the ones that are coming up, that’s what I get a high from. I want the focus to be on that rather than on my private life, which really isn’t that interesting!”

Our meetings halted, though, once he took a break from Pakistani TV. His drama for the Hum TV Network, opposite Dananeer Mobeen and titled Meem Se Mohabbat,is about to begin airing. It is hoped that the much-hyped Netflix series will also soon make its debut. And therefore, Ahad and I are meeting yet again.

The last time I met him at an event, he had a beard and his hair was falling from his head in long curls, scrunched into a beanie. Now, clean-shaven with short hair, Ahad looks like the quintessential chocolate hero — boyish with expressive, serious eyes that tend to widen when he feels strongly about something, as he often does.

“That look was for a role!” Ahad laughs, referring to his long-haired avatar. “A lot of people started assuming that I was going through a phase or was depressed, but it was a look that I had created for a character that you’ll be seeing in a project next year. I grew my hair for nearly a year and fans kept commenting on social media that I should cut my hair. Now, when they see why I didn’t do so, I think that they will be happy.”

He does not specify which role and this leads me to assume that it is probably for the upcoming JBHSSL. Netflix, of course, has certain mandates that restrict actors from discussing a project before its release. So, despite my curiosity, we don’t discuss the series too much. He does tell me, though, that emotionally it has been his most challenging role yet. “I don’t want to reveal too much but it was tough. Emotionally, it just took everything out of me.”

Does the delay in the series’ release perturb him? “No, I have come to believe that everything happens for a reason. The release will happen when it is meant to happen. Everyone has just given their A-game to this project. I mean, what a cast! I don’t think a cast like this will come together again on screen for a long time. I am really excited to see everyone’s work in it.”

What about Meem Se Mohabbat? “It has such a unique storyline,” he says. “It’s lighthearted with some heavy undertones to it. It’s the kind of story that I had been looking for — multi-dimensional with moments of depth.” He adds, “It’s written by Farhat Ishtiaq. I have always had a hard time refusing a script written by her.”

JBHSSL has also been written by Farhat Ishtiaq, I point out, as have many other dramas that Ahad has acted in. He nods. “I think that I may have broken the record for acting in the most scripts written by her,” he says. “Her storytelling is phenomenal. Every time I read one of her scripts or hear one of her stories, I get hooked right away.”

Is he generally selective about the projects that he signs on to? He muses, “I don’t think it’s a matter of being selective. I used to think a lot about what I wanted to do next but now it’s come to the point that, if something speaks to me here,” he points to his heart, “and it’s a role that I haven’t done before, then I don’t see any reason for not doing it.”

He adds, “For some time, I did get stuck in the rut where I wanted every project of mine to do well. Then, I realised that I needed to pause and return to my roots. I was lucky to be doing what I was doing and I needed to stop stressing and just enjoy myself.”

Was it because of this pressure that he took his time signing on to his next Pakistani drama script, post-Hum Tum? He pauses.

“I was working. It’s just that the audience in Pakistan didn’t get to see a lot of that work. I think that it was the month after wrapping up Hum Tum that I got cast in World On Fire. There was an extensive audition process before I got selected. In Pakistan, I am competing against my own peers here. Internationally, I am competing with everybody. So if you want to make it internationally, it is a lot harder, but when you do land a role, it is very fulfilling.”

“My part [in World On Fire] was set in Africa but we didn’t travel there. Instead, we shot in a 360 degrees, blue screen studio,” he says describing a virtual filming technique. “It was all set up in this giant tyre factory, I think that it must have been as big as a football field, and there were blue screens all about. There would be explosions, gunfire and sand that was literally everywhere. I used to come back from the shoot and there would be sand all over me. It was difficult, but when you see the show, you’ll know that it was all worth it.”

His international repertoire also includes being part of the series Resident Evil and performing on stage as Hamlet in two separate runs of the show. Does he feel that he may have lost out on some great opportunities in Pakistan because he was busy with his international work?

“But that’s okay,” he shrugs, “you win some, you lose some. You know, as actors, we only have a few faces that we can show in the form of different characters. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t done a lot of work — I don’t want to run out of faces!”

I am sure you have plenty of faces, I tell him. He nods and quips, “For some time, I wasn’t on screen and my dad was and my mom would be watching my dad’s dramas. Everyone around us started talking about ‘Asif Sahib’! I think I got a little jealous there and decided that I had to just get back on screen.”

On a more serious note, Ahad adds, “Over time I did realise that it was a bit unfair to the fans, the people who still want to see me on screen, that I had not signed on to more work in Pakistan.”

That’s alright, I tell him, you can do so now. He nods. Evidently, that’s the plan.

Fandom, trolls and romantic chemistry!

While Ahad may not have worked full-throttle in Pakistan for some time, the love that his fans have for him is immense. It means that his projects are always highly anticipated — it also means that he is also always under scrutiny. Does it sometimes get tiresome getting photographed or meeting fans even when he is tired or not in a good mood?

“So what if I am in a bad mood? It’s not the fault of someone who has summed up the courage to come and meet me,” he says. “There have been times when I have been upset or sad but it doesn’t mean that I should ruin the moment for someone who is happy to see me. It doesn’t make sense.”

He continues, “It is a wonderful feeling to be loved and have people’s attention and for people to look forward to your work. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.”

But where there are fans, there are also trolls. How does he handle negativity directed towards him on social media? “Social media’s great because it’s given everyone a voice. Everyone has an opinion and that’s good, because everyone should. Sometimes when people don’t like something and they talk about it, it actually helps in bringing about change.

“Having said that, it’s very important to have kindness and compassion. I don’t respond to the mean comments and I understand that they’re inevitable in the work that I do. But while actors may be more accustomed to the spotlight, we’re also just human. We see everything, read everything and somewhere, deep in our subconscious, it could really hurt us.”

He smiles. “I don’t feel the need to respond to trolls but I do respond to love, to fun comments from fans. There was a photoshoot that came out where I had very long hair and some fans inserted pictures of me with short hair and asked, this or that. I responded to that. That’s fun.”

I tread tricky ground with him: he was particularly trolled when he was part of a certain scene in Resident Evil which was categorised as ‘Bold’ by the desi audience. Did he expect the desi audience to take offence to the scene?

“Yes, and that was scary,” he says, “The thing is, I was there in the US, expected to enact this scene, which is no big deal to them. By their standards, it was actually just PG-13. What am I supposed to say to them? On Pakistani TV, we sometimes show so much domestic abuse that it isn’t safe for children to view it. When it comes to showing affection, though, we have a problem. And we’re all watching content from Hollywood and Bollywood and this was also an international show. Just because there was a Pakistani actor in this show, playing a certain role, people felt that they must judge him for it.”

And then, Resident Evil got removed by Netflix a few months after its release. A smattering of local social media pages opted to announce the news by declaring that ‘Resident Evil, starring Ahad Raza Mir, had been cancelled’. I had personally found it mean — the show had also starred many others. What was the need to put down one of our own simply in order to create a clickbait headline? I mention this to Ahad: did this attitude hurt him? It must have – but he replies in the negative.

“I just thought that it was silly that they were using my name,” he says. “Netflix cancels shows all the time. If they chose to create those headlines then so be it. I certainly wasn’t going to put up an Instagram post in retaliation, clarifying anything! Why bother?”

We move back to the local playing field.

He has sometimes been referred to as a Hum TV Network favourite, having worked with the channel extensively. Is he? “I think so,” he says. “I have had such a long relationship with Hum TV. They have always been good to me, taken my input and given me respect. I am also now diversifying to work with other channels and I am excited about that, just to kind of see what the difference is. Obviously, every channel has its own mandate of the kind of content that they want to produce and I am excited to see how I fit in.”

Is it tricky establishing romantic chemistry with his co-stars? “It’s not something that you create artificially,” he says. “You just dive into it. The chemistry between two actors, whether they’re playing romantic partners or enemies or a father and son, is formed based on how their frequencies go together.”

I tease him, “Your frequency matches with most people?” He moves his hand to indicate waves and says, “My energy is very variable. It easily matches with different people.”

He adds, “I recently worked with an extremely generous actress who just gave me the space to be as big, as soft, as complex, as simple as I wanted to be. Whenever that particular show releases, the quality of my work will just be a reflection of how much she supported me.”

What show? And which actress? “I can’t say right now,” he says. I put two and two together, of course there is one show of his which can’t be discussed in detail right now due to various restrictions.

The personal terrain

We switch to questions of a more personal nature. Does his family watch his work? I add that I know that his mother does, because she posts about it with great enthusiasm on Instagram.

“She’s my biggest fan,” he smiles. “I don’t know if Baba watches my work,” he adds, referring to his father, veteran actor Asif Raza Mir. “Perhaps he keeps his opinion to himself so that it doesn’t affect me in any way.”

And does he guide his brother Adnan Raza Mir, who has just taken his first few steps into acting? “I am very proud of him,” says Ahad, “and I think he’s much better at being famous than I am, because he enjoys it more. I try to help him out by guiding him on how not to make the same mistakes that I did.”

And what were some of those mistakes, Ahad? He pauses, knowing that he just walked into that question! “For one, I should be working more,” he says. “Maybe taking my health more seriously and stressing too much over work when I should relax and accept that maybe I do understand this job.”

He has asked me not to ask very personal questions but I try anyway: Are you single?

I get the answer that I was expecting: “You know I like to keep my private life private.”

Because you’d prefer the focus to be on your work?

“Yes.”

And besides, Ahad, you don’t consider your personal life to be too exciting?

I get a grin here. “No I don’t.”

His work is pretty exciting too.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 17, 2024