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Sanam Saeed has returned to television after seven years with Main Manto Nahi Hoon, a drama shrouded by controversy for its teacher-student romance, its dialogue, and its writer, Khalilur Rahman Qamar. In a candid conversation with Aamna Haider Isani on Haute Talk, the actor shared why she agreed to take on the role of Miss Maria in the now-controversial drama.

“Last year in June, I got a call from Nadeem Baig. I was finishing Jo Bache Hain Sang Samait Lo, I was in Europe, and I got a call,” she recalled. “He said there’s a role of a teacher and that I’ll be good for it. I know that Main Manto Nahi Hoon was in the works for a long time, and that its cast has been changing and evolving over the years. So he named all the actors he had roped in by then, including Humayun Saeed and Sajal Aly. And I was like, I’ve never worked with Humayun or Sajal before.”

She admitted that she had declined Baig’s offer twice before — not because of the roles, but due to unavailability. “This time, if I had said no again, it would be like saying, ‘don’t ask me again’. So this time I was like, here’s a drama that’s got Humayun and Sajal, it’s a Khalilur Rehman Qamar script, but, let’s see what we can do.”

Pressed for time, Saeed said she didn’t read the entire script, just the portions involving her character. “This is the first time that I didn’t read the whole script, just my parts. And I really enjoyed Miss Maria.”

Discovering Miss Maria

The actor described Miss Maria as unlike any character she has played before. “I never played a woman who behaves like she’s Manto’s wife, it’s sweet. The writing doesn’t mention her family; you just get to know that she’s this teacher who’s Manto’s colleague, and both of them live in this teacher community. It’s a one-way street of love because Manto’s clearly not into her like that, but he’s very much dependent on her. They’re both friends, and it’s okay for Miss Maria if he doesn’t love her, but she’s there for him, which I thought was very sweet.”

She added that Miss Maria’s sari obsession made the role fun to play. “I know a lot of the characters I’ve done wore saris, so I was like, what can we do differently, so we tried the curly hair. I enjoyed that character because it felt different. I felt I looked unrecognisable.”

Part of her decision was also about returning to television. “I was doing TV after seven years, so I really wanted to get my foot in the door again because I became so accustomed to films and series. Deedan was my last project. Because for me, I’ve never cared about my role being big or small, heroine or not, as long as it’s a fun role and you’re doing it authentically, I’ll be down.”

On the student-teacher controversy

Addressing the debate around the drama’s student-teacher romance, Saeed acknowledged the ethical concerns. “Yes, ethically, it’s not right. A teacher and student cannot have a romantic relationship, and they won’t unless she leaves the university. And you can see the way it is being depicted; there is that romantic tension between them. But at the end of the day, it’s a story, it’s fiction. The point of it is that love happens, it can happen, even if you don’t want it to. It’s not reality, it’s not a documentary.”

When asked why audiences respond so strongly to such plot lines, she explained, “Because we have given them really good dramas that have taught some valuable lessons. People have had good role models in the shape of a character. So when an actor who played that character, a specific actor who’s done such roles, takes on a different kind of role, then it shakes people’s confidence in them a little bit. People say they didn’t expect such a thing from this person.”

But for Saeed, playing diverse characters is essential. “At the end of the day, we get bored, we aren’t here to give lessons, we’re not real-life teachers, we have to diversify our portfolios. It’s a privilege to be vessels through which certain messages are conveyed to the audience but we’re just playing different characters — some you’ll like, some you’ll hate, some you’ll idolise, and for some, you’ll be like ‘why did you do this’ and even we’ll be like, ‘why did I do this?’ But you won’t know till you try. Next time, maybe we won’t take a role that had a negative impact, or a role that was so small. But it’s okay.”

On working with a Khalilur Rehman Qamar script

Saeed admitted she was apprehensive about signing onto a Qamar project. But she had the confidence that she could contest lines that felt outdated or perpetuated harmful attitudes, to play her part authentically without compromising her principles.

“I was very concerned that this was KRQ script. I was like ‘what am I doing’, ‘how am I doing this’, but I was confident that because of past scripts of his, that now change can be made, and if there are certain lines and dialogues that are concerning, someone like me can say that I’m not doing this.”

She said she didn’t have too many problematic lines herself, but her co-stars sometimes did. “I was like, we need to reconstruct these just so that it’s politically correct and sensitive. Just so that it is not problematic. Just small things like ‘Mein usko bataonga’, you can’t say that anymore. So getting that changed. Or something like, laughing off someone’s bad behaviour and capping that off with, ‘this happens’. No. It doesn’t happen. And you can’t say that. And Nadeem could pull that off. And I know Sajal also had to do the same in a few scenes, where she could. But times are changing, and I think one learns their lesson, and we were confident that because Baig sahab is directing, we will be able to contest if we don’t feel something is right.”

Shooting while pregnant

Another challenge Saeed faced was filming during her pregnancy. “So I wasn’t initially expecting, and then I was. And I told them, guys my cutoff date is this, and after that, I don’t know what you’re going to do because it’ll show. But the shoot continued even after my cutoff date because lining up actors on earlier dates was difficult. So I’m on set even seven months pregnant. But when they shot me from the side, they hid my stomach with different things. Throughout, my clothes had to be resized. But I was seven months pregnant in many scenes.”

For Saeed, Main Manto Nahi Hoon wasn’t about offering moral lessons, nor was it about blindly following a script. She acknowledged that audiences now hold dramas and actors to high standards because of the strong role models television has produced, but insisted that artists must have the freedom to explore flawed, difficult or even uncomfortable narratives.

In the end, her return to TV with Main Manto Nahi Hoon was about Miss Maria, the sari-obsessed teacher who quietly loves and supports Manto.