'Didn’t Jinnah want to be an actor?' The question ruffles journos at Actor-In-Law trailer launch

The trailer launch for a forthcoming film Actor-in-Law took an interesting turn at a local hotel on Tuesday evening when a couple of journalists, during the question-and-answer session, inquired about a scene from the trailer in which a character says: ‘Quaid-i-Azam too wanted to become an actor’.

The journalists thought that the line was ‘offensive’.

Responding to the question first, actor Fahad Mustafa, who is playing the male lead in the movie, said it’s a film, and the line was part of its content. He said in films such things came up and he would like all to see it first. He said he’d like to assure the media that there’s nothing in the movie which could offend anyone.

When the same query was put to the director of Actor-in-Law, Nabeel Qureshi, he said the media had seen the trailer in a ‘scattered’ way so they didn’t know of its [line’s] background. He said he hadn’t included the line out of nowhere. He said it was based on facts and actually the idea for the film generated from it. He reiterated that the Quaid-i-Azam wanted to be an actor because when he went to London to study law, he had tried to do Shakespeare. He said the Quaid wrote this to his father in a letter, to which his father said he couldn’t betray his family (tum apne khandan ko dhoka nahin de sakte). He said that made the Quaid into a great lawyer and he helped us gain independence.

When Fahad again got hold of the microphone, he said few films were made in Pakistan and we got offended easily. He said this [project] was all entertainment.

Earlier, addressing newsmen producer of the film Fizza Ali Meerza said Actor-in-Law was her and Mr Qureshi’s second film (first being Namaloom Afraad). She said they had made it with a lot of hard work and ‘right intention’. She said they had tried to entertain the audiences, adding that only after watching the film (which is set to be released on Eidul Azha) one could tell how successful the team was in entertaining cine-goers.

Nabeel Qureshi said earlier in the day when he logged onto his Facebook page he realised that it was on June 27, 2014 that the trailer of Namaloom Afraad was launched. He called it nostalgic. He said the last time he was very ‘confident’ but this time round he was ‘conscious’, because previously no one knew him.

Actress Mehwish Hayat, who plays the female lead in the story, said her experience of working in Actor-in-Law was very good. She said it was an honour and privilege for her to be a part of the venture. She said hers was a challenging character for which she had to rehearse many times. She said her role had quite a few ‘shades’ and the movie was a ‘social comedy’. She asked the audience to watch the film and ‘support Pakistani cinema’.

Fahad Mustafa said not many films were being made in Pakistan. He said everyone thought that they had made a good film, but all one could do was to work hard and try one’s best. The rest, he said, was up to God and the audience. He termed the film a ‘brave attempt’ saying that it wasn’t the conventional comedy. He said it touched upon social issues that we all wanted to speak about but couldn’t. He said the characterisation was good and probably the audience would leave the theatre after watching the story with a message.

Indian actor Om Puri, who too plays an important character in Actor-in-Law, relayed his message through a video link. He said everyone had worked hard on the project. He said he wished well for the film and hoped that viewers would ‘support’ it. After his address the trailer was shown, which the audience liked so much that they asked for it to be played again.

Nina Kashif, Alyy Khan and Rana Kamran also spoke. Shehnaz Ramzi conducted the event.

Originally published in Dawn, June 29th, 2016