Feroze Khan, Sana Javed and Abdullah Kadwani talk about the transition from the hugely successful Khaani to the polar opposite, and yet increasingly popular, Romeo Weds Heer.
In between the countless weepies and heavy hearted social dramas playing on every channel, there’s one drama that aims to deliver tickles every Sunday evening. The slapstick may be too much to digest at times – how many times would it be enough for Nazar (played by Shafaat Ali) to say, ‘after all mein damaad hoon yaar’ without you wanting to pull his (or your own) hair out – but at the end of the day it is comic relief and one isn’t complaining. Neither are the millions of people watching and loving the drama serial, which has been trending on number one every week and has been hitting extremely high ratings. It went up to a fantastic 9.45 this week and has even picked up a huge fan following in India!
Romeo Weds Heer brings back the popular onscreen couple Feroze Khan and Sana Javed, along with a stellar cast amongst which Ali Safina is priceless; he brings back the good old days when we watched and loved him as Taaka from the Aayegi Baraat series. Romeo Weds Heer is produced by Asad Qureshi and Abdullah Kadwani of 7th Sky Entertainment, written by Dr Muhammad Younis Butt and directed by Anjum Shahzad, the man who gave us Khaani. It looks like he’s making up for Mir Hadi and Sanam Khan’s lack of romance in Khaani and again, no one’s complaining.
It is a complete 180 degree turn for the team but I have to say they’re all handling the transition very well.
While actors like Firdous Jamal (Hakeem Luqman), Ali Safina (Jaidee) and Shafaat Ali (Nazar) are pros at comedy, both Feroze and Sana have had to shed their characters from Khaani and adapt a completely new avatar for Romeo Weds Heer.
How easy (or not) was it for Feroze Khan to transition from the dark and sinister Mir Hadi to the young and carefree Romeo, I asked him?
“When I was offered Khaani I had already played negative characters; it was challenging but it was something I had done before,” Feroze Khan, who plays the carefree Romeo, spoke to Instep. “Also, Mir Hadi had controlled expressions; they were intense but not so tough to deliver. Romeo is a completely opposite character; he can’t stand still for a second. He’s a 24-year old university kid, a happy go lucky guy who everybody loves. Romeo was a lot more difficult than Mir Hadi because it’s not easy to make someone laugh. It takes a lot of hard work and energy. I was never so tired when doing Khaani but Romeo was exhausting because I was constantly looking for new expressions to give him.”
“It was very difficult,” Sana Javed, who plays the beautiful and headstrong Heer, reflected the same sentiment. “Khaani was emotionally draining and I lived that character and stayed depressed for as long as I was playing it. But then that character transitioned and Khaani went from being a shy, meek girl to a strong and confident person; she was the breadwinner, almost like a son. I jumped from that to Romeo Weds Heer and it was really difficult. Heer is a fearless and loud character and I absorbed her character, her style, her personality, which took so much energy and expression.”
“We have to detox each character before we can step onto the set of the next,” Sana continued. “Sometimes there’s not even a day’s break between two plays and you have no time to switch. It’s exhausting.”
Actors and characters aside, producers and directors usually stick to a winning formula and choose to pick a genre that is guaranteed to do well. In Pakistan, that formula has often been tragedy, misery, depression and oppression; it’s an open secret that weepies do the best business. I was unable to get through to Anjum Shahzad for this story (we will be bringing you his interview soon) but managed to get in touch with Abdullah Kadwani, one of the producers, for his motivation on making Romeo Weds Heer.
“It was a very big risk, but there are some people who like to take risks,” he spoke to Instep. “This was a 180-degree flip for us, from Khaani to Romeo Weds Heer, and it was a risk and an experiment but we were confident that it would work. It worked with the same team, which is amazing. I’m delighted that the masses and classes are both enjoying it. We took the Khaani fever and transformed it to a completely different genre,” Mr Kadwani added, confidently.
We do need risk takers, amongst actors, directors and producers and while our TV plays do have room for immense improvement, it’s reassuring to know that some people are at least thinking out of the box.
