Nadia Afgan laments delayed payments, says she wasn’t paid for several dramas

Nadia Afgan voiced her grievances about delayed payments in the entertainment industry, a practice she said has been there since “forever”.

In an appearance on Something Haute’s podcast, the Jafaa actor revealed that she hadn’t been paid for several dramas despite knowing the producers.

She added that she refused to work with them again and had a black book listing actors, directors and producers she would not work with in the future. “Yesterday, I said I have no people left [to work with], everyone is going in the black book,” she chuckled.

Afgan shared that new actors in the industry weren’t paid on time and eventually got used to it, so they continued telling those who came after them that that’s just how the industry operated.

“Sometimes you get a jolt because you’ve worked so much, but never received the money.”

Afgan detailed the conditions that applied for an actor to be paid on time. “Either you’re very senior like Nauman Ijaz and no one dares to stop your payments for half a minute. I am where I am because of Samina Ahmed and Nauman Ijaz’s advice. They told me, ‘Raise your voice, don’t be afraid, God gives you rizq [sustenance] not these people’.”

The actor therefore “fights” to be paid on time and “no one dares to stop my payments.” She maintained that she refuses to work with people who do not pay on time and continues to get work.

The Radd actor said she tried to help young actors whose payments were dragged out, adding that it wasn’t just young actors — who could fight for their rights after gaining popularity — but also older actors and character actors who were mistreated and underpaid.

Afgan said often crew members left their jobs because they wouldn’t receive their salaries and couldn’t say anything despite needing the money.

“My energy should go towards my creative work, not towards being the mother of the set,” she said, adding that she often helped solve production problems and would have to get bathrooms cleaned on set.

“Now I get it written in my contracts that we need clean bathrooms, if they’re not clean I get them cleaned and sometimes I’ve cleaned them myself because I need to work there the whole time.”

Afgan also highlighted the suffering of junior actors who she said were made to sit outside in the heat, or packed into one room without a fan. She said sometimes older actors weren’t allowed in the room allocated to the lead actors.

“There’s a hierarchy and sometimes you feel that [this treatment] is not okay. There are good things also, but there are so many problems. It’s like a jungle out there, but I’m having fun because I have authority and I’ve set my boundaries.”

Afgan’s comment comes shortly after actors Ramsha Khan and Khushhal Khan spoke about the pervasive problem of delayed or nonpayment to actors and crew members.

Afgan was in agreement with them. In a social media post, she said that she stopped working with everyone except two production houses because every other company delayed payments.

“That we have to repeatedly ask for our money. That we don’t get royalties. And the channels are making tons of money from YouTube and are not willing to pay us our dues,” she wrote on Instagram.

Transitioning into older characters

Commenting on being relegated to the role of mother in dramas, the actor said the transition wasn’t difficult for her. She said the first offer for her to act in a maternal role came a long time ago in Sannata, where she had to play actor Saba Qamar’s mother and Sajal Aly’s aunt.

“They told me I have to play Saba Qamar’s mother, and I said, ‘Okay, fine’.”

Afgan said Samina Ahmed explained to her that when an actor was offered a character and if it was interesting, they should take it up as a challenge and it did not matter if you were a 20-year-old being asked to play a 50-year-old or somebody’s mother.

“I always thought if I’m given the character of a mother of a specific age, then I will play that age to the best of my abilities.”

Talking about a specific instance, she narrated that after her show Suno Chanda in which she played the role of Farhan Ally Agha’s wife, director Danish Nawaz wanted her to play Agha’s mother in a new drama.

“I said ‘I just played his wife in Suno Chanda, if you give me that kind of get-up where you bring in a makeup artist who gives me that look then I will do it, but if you ask me to put whitener [on my hair] and wear glasses, then I won’t’.”

Afgan said she saw women around her go through the “torture and trauma” of transitioning from a heroine to phuppo because younger actors joined the industry and there weren’t enough characters written to cater to various age groups.

“There’s two characters in our dramas, one’s a girl, one’s a boy and there’s a love story.”

Despite the lack of diversity in roles, Afgan maintained that her career was fulfilling. “You search for small gems, but you have to work because this is the work we know. This is very fun, I love my work. I love the people, we have a great field.”

The actor said producers, directors and actors listened to her and valued what she had to say, before joking about how it could be the case because they were scared of her.