Daughter of legendry folk singer, Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi, Laraib Atta made her way to Hollywood as a visual effects artist in 2006. With a number of blockbusters to her credit that include X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla, Gravity, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Trader and Prince Caspian, 10, 000 BC and Sweeney Todd, the visual effects artist has most recently worked on the upcoming Tom Cruise film, Mission: Impossible - Fallout. “Before I started the course I had no idea what VFX is, I just knew that this is magic for films, that’s all I knew,” Laraib Atta said in a recent interview with BBC Asia.
According to Laraib, she didn’t know back then that she was going to get into visual effects. All she knew was that she wanted to do something related to art and technology. “The first time I watched Toy Story that really inspired me, I was like wow, how is this done?”
The artist also shared that her parents didn’t even know what she was getting into. “When I spoke to my father and mother, they were like you have all the choices in the world. Whatever you want to do, whatever career you want to pursue you can definitely go for it.”
Laraib Atta further added, “Back then when I started I was the only girl in the course, the youngest and of course the only Pakistani. Now there are more women coming in this industry but it is still 70 to 80 per cent men. The goal is to get more women, young people into this line and definitely more Pakistanis.”
Laraib Atta is the youngest Pakistani VFX artist and her first Hollywood movie released when she was only 19.
-Mission: Impossible: Fallout is currently playing at cinemas, at home and abroad.
