It wasn’t difficult for Ali to relate to Umair’ in Faisla (2017) where he played an angry young man. Abbas says, “I’m an angry person. I didn’t have a problem connecting to this character.”
Ali Abbas is no stranger to fame. His father was a noted theatre, film and television actor and his grandfather Inayat Hussain Bhatti was a legendary playback singer (he originally sang the song “Chan Mere Makhna”), columnist and media personality.
Abbas’ rise to stardom has been consistent and marked with a variety of roles. While there are slim pickings in the Pakistani drama industry for character actors owing to the narrow margins given in roles, Abbas has managed to add diversity and flavor to his career graph. Daily Times spoke to Abbas about his various roles and his current position in the entertainment industry.
Abbas played a small role in the 2015 drama ‘Aye Zindagi’ in which he portrayed a young man who saw his parents in an abusive relationship and projected the same abuse onto his spouse. While the role was short and brief, Abbas managed to get into the character’s skin. “It was a very interesting character. This guy was seemingly normal and your average shy boy. And yet he would often stand up to his abusive father to protect his mother. But when he becomes a husband himself, he becomes a reflection of his own father. Even though the play wasn’t as successful on the whole, this character was pretty fascinating.”
It was the Ayeza Khan-Imran Abbas starrer, ‘Tum Kon Piya’ (2016), that Abbas received his first big break. “It was a main event for me,” Abbas says. It was a mega project that shone full light on Abbas’ talents as an actor and as a leading performer. “I was playing a central character, opposite Ayeza, and it was a pressure situation. I was too young. I had done leads before but they were in small-time shows. Tum Kon Piya was where I was opposite a top heroine, opposite top stars.” Zarbab, as Abbas’ character in the drama, was a struggling, confused person who gets dominated by everyone around him – his situation changes when Zarbab comes into the seat of power an makes some terrible decisions. “It was a lot of fun to play this character,” Ali remembers, “Ayeza and Imran never for once made me feel that I was a junior artist then. And I learnt so much from Yasir Nawaz.”
Ali was only beginning to make his mark and when ‘Kisay Chahoon’ (2016) aired on Hum TV, Abbas played Ameer, and the role garnered him a lot of love from audiences. ‘Ameer’ was a simple yet intelligent young man who comes to the city to study and is paired opposite Sonya Hussayn, a belligerent young woman who was already in love with someone else. “The challenge in this character was, to not look like Shah Rukh Khan’s character in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi because a lot of beats were similar to that character. I used to sit with Ahmed Bhatti (the director) and we would discuss how I could add improvisations – something which I love doing! I used to add a lot of subtlety to it and Bhatti Saab used to make sure that I didn’t overdo it.”
Ali went on to play the ‘Beast’ in a play called Titlee (2017) which was based on the fairytale Beauty and the Beast. It was a risk, Ali says. He recalls how the role called for someone who wasn’t good looking. “Now I’m not saying that I’m the most good-looking person but perhaps Nina Kashif (the showrunner at Urdu1) didn’t see me fitting in that role. So I called her up. And I told her I really want to do this. I asked her to give me a chance and she told me, ‘You have two days’. I worked with my makeup artist and sent Nina seven different looks. She called me later and said, ‘you’ve impressed me’.” Ali appeared opposite Hania Amir and he remembers how he had no idea that Hania had a huge social media following for her vines and videos. “It was a challenge to act seriously alongside her. She’s incredibly funny.” Ali played Ahmed a responsible, complexed young man who was in love with a girl who was only with him for selfish, material reasons. “He had a speech impediment and all that had to be worked into Ahmed’s complexes as a person.”
Ali played an outright negative, difficult person in ‘Khaali Haath’ (2017) and says that, “It was difficult to justify why he was ‘negative’. He often spoke to himself. Not in voice-overs, but he actually spoke to himself. I was assisted greatly by the director, Wajahat Hussain. And I realized that I’d have to rely on him to help me figure out how and why this character is being so negative.”
It wasn’t difficult for Ali to relate to Umair in ‘Faisla’ (2017) where he played an angry young man. Abbas says, “I’m an angry person. I didn’t have a problem connecting to this character.” In ‘Rubaru Ishq Tha,’ Abbas has channelised his anger again and plays a tough cop. However, in ‘Mere Khuda Jaanay,’ he is a caring husband stuck in very complex family dynamics that involves a second wife, an ailing first wife and conniving family members. In the upcoming drama serial ‘Noor Bibi,’ Ali would be playing another hero role opposite Sanam Chaudhary and film star Resham.
Ali’s choices continue to toe a thin and difficult line for male actors in the industry who are often type-casted as ‘villains’ or ‘heroes’.
Published in Daily Times, August 3rd 2018.