POPULAR PAKISTANI ACTOR AND PRODUCER SHEHERYAR MUNAWAR ON HIS UNIQUE JOURNEY TO THE VERY TOP
by ASJAD NAZIR
POPULAR Pakistani star Sheheryar Munawar has shown that being picky about projects can work perfectly in your favour.
The terrifically talented actor has been selective about film and television projects since making his debut in 2012 drama serial Meray Dard Ko Jo Zuban Miley. He has since starred in successful films like Ho Mann Jahaan, 7 Din Mohabbat and Parey Hut Love, along with hit serials like Aasmanon Pay Likha. He has continued that winning run with his latest serial Pehli Si Muhabbat. The multi-talented star has mixed up winning performances on-screen with work behind the camera as a director and producer.
Eastern Eye caught up with Sheheryar Munawar to discuss his journey, latest drama serial, inspirations and Eid plans. The leading man also revealed his own ultimate hero and what he enjoys watching as an audience.
How do you look back on your journey as an actor?
Well, it’s been a long and slow process. In my case, I don’t think there’s such a thing as overnight success. We see it happen overnight and never get to see the process that’s gone into it. So for me, I did my first project as a professional actor back in 2012 and now it’s 2021. It has been about nine and a half years. It’s been a long journey. I’d like to say slow and steady wins the race. I remember reading a fable when I was younger and that was the moral of the story. So, I guess that’s what I’ve been doing.
You are hugely popular, but why don’t you do more acting projects than you do?
Initially when I started, I wasn’t happy with the kind of work I was doing and the projects that were coming my way. So, I took some years off and started working behind the camera as an assistant director. Then I directed television commercials and a TV show. I produced films as well. Then I started acting again. So, that’s why you don’t see as much of me, even though I’ve been around for those nine years.
It hasn’t affected your popularity…
The interesting thing is, in our line of work, they say, ‘out of sight, out of mind’, so how I’ve managed to stay relevant in those nine years amazes me as well, with the little work that I’ve done. But now I feel I’m enjoying myself as an actor. I’m enjoying my performances and feel now is the time to switch gears and do more work.
Which of your characters have you enjoyed playing the most?
I think Arhaan from Ho Mann Jahaan. I liked that character because he was unapologetic about whatever he did, generally in life. He was grey and I love playing characters like that. He was this young guy coming out of university and having to deal with pressures. They say that usually adversity brings out either the best or the worst in a person. It brought out the worst in him, but I could relate to the character because I had recently graduated from university at that point.
Does your approach as an actor change between film and TV projects?
Yes, there is a difference. With films, generally there’s a little
more projection required and what that is, depends on the genre. Television is more contained, and the frames are smaller, so you have to sort of contain yourself and be a little closer to how you will be in
real life. A lot of things go into a contained performance.
You are getting good reviews for your latest drama serial Pehli Si Muhabbat. What did you like about it?
When I read the story, I thought there was a lot I could do with the character. When he starts out, he’s not a typical hero and a bit of a grey character. He is a compulsive liar and an average guy, who likes to have fun with his friends. As the story graduates, we see his journey into becoming a man and turning into what we have in mind of a hero. So, I thought that journey was very interesting. I also liked the characters around him, as they had a lot to say. I really like the character of Nargis and the person she marries is also one I really liked. So, there were characters I liked and thought it was an interesting story to tell. This story itself was simple, but the characters were slightly larger than life.
You are unpredictable, but what can we expect next from you?
I’m probably not going to be doing much work behind the camera this year and will be more in front of the camera. So, I’m reading for a few projects and hopefully, before the end of the year, I’ll have two more projects I will be working on. Then next year I’ll probably do something behind the camera.
Do you have a dream role you would love to play?
I’d love to play quite a few actually. I really like Ryan Gosling’s role from Drive and would love to play a role like that.
What is it that inspires you as an actor?
To be able to create moments that stick with people. I think that one can only do that if you are able to obviously recreate those moments as true and as close to real life as possible. I think that’s what excites me the most – if I can create moments, you know, in a big narrative that are sticky enough to stay with people because I was able to touch their hearts in those little moments.
You are a hero to a lot of people, but who is your own hero?
My dad has always been my hero. He is no less than any hero, if you ever meet him. He is a fun guy. The interesting thing with parents is after crossing a certain age, you become friends with them. He has a great sense of style and is still the most interesting person in the room.
What is the best advice you ever got?
To never look back because when you look back, you are neither moving forward nor can you go back in time; you’re just stagnant and stuck in time. So never look back!
What kind of content do you like to watch as an audience?
You may find this very boring, but I watch a lot of documentaries and docudramas. Growing up, I used to love watching the History channel. In terms of shows, I recently watched The Crown. I enjoyed watching House Of Cards and also watched You, which is interesting. So, just random stuff, but mostly documentaries. I also enjoy films and will watch classics because I feel you get to learn a lot from them, in terms of storytelling. I have a very quirky taste because sometimes I will watch international projects like South Korean films.
Has the pandemic lockdown changed you in any way?
I mean it has changed my perspective in general. I think it’s generally helped me be more grounded and understand what things are actually important. It has helped me sort of decipher or separate between the absolute necessary and all that we used to do and that used to weigh us down. I think that’s been the most important change – the way I look at things. I think even to an emotional state I’ve come down to the basic level and just hold on to the bare necessities, which are people close to me, such as my loved ones and things that are absolutely necessary.
How do you plan on spending your Eid holiday this year?
With my family! Obviously, we are in the middle of a pandemic, so nobody will be going out. But my sister and brother-in-law will be in town, Inshallah. My parents and my little brother, so just bunch of us together locked up in our house. I guess we will dress up and cook as a family because we love doing that. (Laughs) We are all big foodies, which isn’t great for my career or my waistline. We will also offer our prayers as a family.
Finally, what are your hopes and prayers this Eid?
That I wake up on Eid day and there is no such thing as this pandemic anymore. There is no Covid-19! That we can all wake up in this new world and it was all a bad dream.
Instagram: @sheheryarmunawar
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5