He can be the meanest guy ever in a TV drama.

Sitting across from actor Adnan Samad Khan, I tell him this, recalling his two most recent acting avatars. He smiles. “That means that I have been believable,” he points out to me.

This statement sums up Adnan’s philosophy as an actor so succinctly and so aptly that it serves as the perfect introduction as I begin writing about him. Being believable has never been a problem for this young, very talented actor. He proved it when he made his TV debut five-odd years ago, with the drama Ehd-i-Wafa, shining in a multi-starrer cast and winning awards for it. He’s continued to do so, with a slew of roles that have lately been negative.

And now, he’s waiting for something more, something that adds more shades to the sneering, malevolent, cookie-cutter version of the anti-hero that keeps coming his way.

Consequently, I have waited too, for this interview. Shortly after wrapping up his shoots for the dramas Khumaar and Sukoon — two dramas that were shot around the same time, and that aired on two different channels simultaneously — Adnan returned home for a sabbatical. We have been coordinating for this interview ever since.

The young television actor’s greatest achievement, he says, is making his viewers believe his characters are real. His passion for his craft is inspirational, as he tries to make an impact even when pigeonholed into repetitive negative roles. But now he is waiting for something different to come his way…

Several months later, I sit across from him. He is visiting Karachi for work and the change in him is impressive. It’s evident that Adnan has shed quite a bit of weight. The trip back home was certainly not just for lounging around in front of the TV, eating junk food.

“No, not at all,” he smiles, shaking his head. “I had been feeling unhealthy and unhappy with my lifestyle. I had been working constantly and it would get very difficult to regulate my diet. I was basically eating a lot of junk food and it had started showing on-screen. Our work can be quite hectic, with the day starting around 9.30-10 in the morning, and going on till 1:00 am in the night. I am very inspired by actors who still manage to fit in the gym into this schedule.”

Returning home, Adnan hit the gym and regulated his diet, and his efforts have worked wonders. He quips, “I read something very funny recently, that the problem with getting fit is that you have to stay fit!”

When an actor isn’t fit, do the roles coming his way also get limited, I ask him.

“Of course,” he replies. “A hero tends to be someone who looks good and the villain should look bad. In TV dramas, casting is usually done from the perspective that the inside should match the outside. An actor’s physical appearance is very important.”

Getting cast as Gulzar in Ehd-i-Wafa was my good fortune. It was a very fine beginning for me and it led to later scripts that allowed me to explore my craft in other directions. To date, every script that has come to me has excited me, even if the end product has not! I just want every character that I play to be different from the previous one.”

What sort of roles interest him particularly: the classic TV drama hero or a nuanced, well-developed character, for instance, like Gulzar, his debut role in Ehd-i-Wafa? “Both,” he says. “I just want to keep expanding my range as an actor. If I get offered an interesting negative character, I would never refuse it just because I want to play the hero. The character should just give me the margin to perform.

“Getting cast as Gulzar was my good fortune. It was a very fine beginning for me and it led to later scripts that allowed me to explore my craft in other directions. To date, every script that has come to me has excited me, even if the end product has not! I just want every character that I play to be different from the previous one.”

This doesn’t always happen, though — and Adnan knows this very well. Most recently, his characters in the dramas Khumaar and Sukoon were similar to the point that one would get confused between the two! Adnan laughs.

“I count those roles as a single character. Both these dramas aired in the same week and, in both, the location was the same, my bedroom was the same, even my Amma — played by Asma Abbas Gill — was the same. She and I had a joke that we would come on set and get confused about whether we were shooting Sukoon or Khumaar!”

Were the dialogues also the same? He shrugs and jokes, “You could mix them up and the audience wouldn’t know!”

He adds, on a more serious note: “The thing is, there should be innovation in drama storylines, but the industry — producers, directors, actors — are often bound by certain restrictions. To do anything at all within these boundaries, should be encouraged because, at the end of the day, this is a business.”

This is true, I agree, but does he not worry that he might be getting typecast into certain kinds of roles? “Let’s look at it this way: what one may consider typecasting, another may consider an actor’s particular brand of acting.”

This rather utopian perspective has me shooting Adnan a look of disbelief, which has him laughing. “I love comedy. I wish I’d get typecast into that!” he declares.

Is he at present awaiting a different kind of role? “Yes,” he admits. “I am tired of screaming at other actors. I am waiting for a script that allows me to work in a different genre.”

What has been his favourite role so far, I ask him, assuming that he would pick the famous Gulzar. To the contrary, Adnan replies, “It is Nael from Fraud. The character went through a long journey, from good to bad and then back to good and, playing him, I got the chance to explore different aspects of the human psyche.

“The director, Saqib [Khan] Bhai, was wonderful and working opposite Saba Qamar was a learning experience. Shooting a scene with her, you realise that you will have to work very hard to live up to her performance, and to somehow manage to touch the pedestal that she is on!”

Recalling the tempestuous Nael and connecting him to his later performances in other dramas, I tell Adnan that I might have figured out why he is being offered so many negative roles: he plays them too well! He grins. “I think I’ll have to put out a few bad performances now,” he jokes.

But by now, I have understood that Adnan would consider putting out a shoddy performance a sin beyond measure. Throughout our conversation, as we discuss the highs and lows of Pakistan’s TV industry, his love for his craft is constantly evident. He’ll take the cons with the pros, the many repetitive roles with the occasional unique one, and he’ll do it smiling, because there is nothing that he wants to do more.

“I am that actor who would be on stage, in the spotlight, elated by the sound of clapping emerging from the darkness where the audience would be sitting,” he says. “I love what I do. The fame and the money that comes from it are just by-products. What could be better than doing a job where I get to be a new person every six months? I can be rich, poor, corrupt or a saint, live in a new world, just for some time.

“Even if I try to find negatives in what I do, I love my work too much and, ultimately, I am happy doing it.” He adds: “The work timings can be ungodly often, with the day starting at 10 in the morning and ending at 3:00 am the next day. You are working while people are sleeping. But then, this doesn’t stress me out too much because I am a night owl.

“If there is a long wait in between scenes, I’ll entertain myself by playing chess on my phone or reading. I love doing both these things and I am being paid to just sit and do them! What other job could allow me to do this?”

This is all well enough but, as a young actor who may have proven his talent but is still in the fledgling years of his career, does this job that he loves also pay well? “It’s enough for me. I don’t have too many necessities,” he hedges.

I persist: but still? He relents: “Sometimes I get paid on time, sometimes I don’t. If one cheque doesn’t come, it doesn’t matter, another will eventually come or I’ll borrow from a friend and pay the money back later. When you have to coexist in an industry, you have to learn to live with the issues that may arise from time to time.”

His answer is an eye-opener, not because it sheds light on the late payment patterns common in Pakistani entertainment — this is no secret, after all. Rather, it is testament to Adnan’s passion for his profession.

He realises this, perhaps, and adds, “Finance departments of channels, this answer was not directed towards you!” he laughs and then says, “It is good, though, that, in some cases, payment processes are getting better.”

I steer the interview towards the personal front: does his family watch his dramas? “Yes, they watch all of them.”

Do they like them? The question has him laughing. “They don’t like anything,” he says. “My mother says that she has seen me in every shade and so, nothing I do on TV is new for her. She’s my harshest critic, her and my brother. These are two people in the audience that I am yet to impress. They were very happy, though, with Ehd-i-Wafa’s success. They were more proud of themselves, rather than of me, that they had made the right decision by giving me the permission to act!”

Was it difficult to initially get permission from home to pursue an acting career? He hails from Kot Addu in southern Punjab and is possibly the only actor to have emerged from the region in recent times. Was his family apprehensive about his unconventional career choice?

“The boys around me were mostly pursuing conventional careers in medicine, commerce or engineering,” he agrees. “Luckily for me, my household is generally very understanding. They were initially reluctant but, when they saw that I was adamant on going to Karachi and studying at the National Academy of Performing Arts [Napa], they gave in.

“My father wanted me to get a professional degree and then pursue acting if I was still inclined to do so. I told him that there was no point in getting me to waste four years of my life, and that I just wanted to go study at Napa. Unfortunately, he died when I was in my second year at the academy.”

So, his father never got to see him act on TV or win a Lux Style Award for his very first TV performance. “No, but I give full credit to him for where I am now,” says Adnan. “I don’t think I would have become an actor had my father not allowed me, not believed in me.”

I am curious: does his family also watch the dramas in which his character is in pain? In Khumaar, for instance, his character gets served justice when his leg ends up getting amputated. “No, both my mother and khala [maternal aunt] refused to watch it,” he says. “Even if a reel of those particular scenes would come up, they would start crying!”

And does he sometimes get frowned upon by random strangers when he is playing a negative character on TV? “Of course,” says Adnan. “They show their displeasure by sending messages to my Inbox. And then, there have been times when I have been out and a woman has suddenly come up to me and told me that I am a bad person, that my parents haven’t raised me right!”

What does he do then? He grins. “You try to tell them that the character on TV is not real, and I am not actually like that. But I also feel a sense of achievement when something like this happens. It means that I have been so convincing that the audience has forgotten that there is a TV screen dividing us. It means that I have been successful as an actor.”

I realise that we’ve come full circle, back to the conversation on being believable. Adnan’s success as an actor is undeniable and his passion for his craft is inspirational, as he tries to make an impact even when pigeonholed into repetitive negative roles. Now, of course, he is waiting for something different.

“If drama-makers keep offering me the same kind of roles, they lose out on the chance of me delivering something different and unique for them. It is their loss as well as my own,” he observes.

It would be the audience’s loss too.

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 29th, 2024