Actor Shaan Shahid believes Fahad Mustafa and Humayun Saeed “want to stay in their comfort zones, they don’t want to challenge their craft”.
He made the remarks while discussing the state of the country’s entertainment industry on the show Rise & Shine on Friday.
He was asked whether he would want to work with the actors, both of whom lead major production houses. The Bullah star said there was always something to learn from working with other actors and both Saeed and Mustafa were great in what they do, but they preferred to “live in their own Disney world”.
Earlier during the episode, he said he believes budgets behind Pakistani film had grown but minds hadn’t, which is why he prefers to do Punjabi films over Urdu ones.
The actor said films today had become a game of numbers rather than art. “Everyone says ‘I made Rs2 billion’ and ‘I made Rs6 billion,’ but we never see any new projects starting. Bullah [Shahid’s most recently released film] showed you can make a film in Rs70 million or Rs80 million and make up to Rs260 million from it in a matter of 20 days. What we wanted to show was that the real substance behind a film is the mind, not the budget.”
He said that’s what he really loved about Punjabi cinema — they never had budgets but Punjabi audiences enjoy a good movie even to this day.
Host Nadia Khan asked Shahid if there was a chance he would do a project with some of his old co-stars, like Reema or Saima Noor. He said it should happen, but there were certain divides in the industry that prevented this. “Everyone has their own area, they rule over it like their personal kingdom — that shouldn’t happen. Things like art, entertainment, politics, wealth and opportunity should flow freely throughout the country.” He said it was “very sad” to see the divide between Karachi and Lahore specifically.
He also talked about how success is measured in likes as opposed to talent these days, which has taken a wrecking ball to the standard of content in the industry. “This is fake and because it is fake, nobody seems to care about the actual content they’re putting out… So much of social media is politicised, whatever isn’t is full of stupidity. People who can’t sing are singing, people who aren’t funny are doing comedy.”
Khan and her co-host Zohaib Hassan also asked the actor about his latest project Psycho and his work with Meera. He said he was more than happy to work with a woman who wanted to hone her craft and her career because that’s what he’d seen his mother doing when he was a child.
When he was asked about a recent interview where Meera was asked inappropriate questions about her personal life, Shahid said the interview made him “lose faith in intellectualism and journalism”. He said it was sad to see that we can’t question authority and instead choose to kick people when they’re down. “That’s not morality.”
The actor agreed with Hassan that it was “principally wrong to ask questions ‘below the belt’” and said there was a line between entertainment journalism and the questioning reserved for political and investigative journalism, which needs to be adhered to.
He also criticised film producers for inflating the costs of making films and creating a barrier for new entrants. Shahid said the success of films should be pushing the industry to expand, which is not something he sees happening.
Hassan also asked the actor what he thought about his contemporaries working in India and how people used to say collaborating with Bollywood would revive our own entertainment industry.
He said he never agreed with the idea, insisting India would treat Pakistani actors like they did Pakistani cricket. “They utilise you however they want and then cast you aside.”
Shahid asked where everyone who insisted that “artists have no borders” was now that India had closed their border. “You have your kingdom here, people love you, why would you go play a side role in someone else’s court?”
The actor did, however, insist that his views on cross-border collaboration were his own and he encouraged others to see what best suits them. “Who am I to stop anybody?” he asked.
