Sexiness and style characterise Mohib Mirza, an actor, a voice-over artist and a host. While his social media profile exhibits him as a man who is passionate about bike-riding and who never forgets to hit the gym, Mohib Mirza maintains that his first love has always been acting, for it was in his youth that he formed a theatre group along with his friends named Dramay Baaz and would often add life to the college events with his skits and jokes.
One of the initial drama serials of Mirza along with Indus TV’s ‘Faisla’ was PTV’s ‘Zaibunnisa’, Pakistan’s first ever serial on harsh domestic violence directed by Sahira Kazmi, in which Mirza played an exemplary role of an ideal life partner as opposed to Adnan Siddiqui, who played the villain. Considering that it was his project with a great director like Sahira Kazmi, the actor says, “The tedious training from PTV days still reflects in my work. Whatever Kazmi taught me about acting, be it dialogue-delivery, pauses or expression-holding remains with me to date and has positively affected my work.”
Since Mirza has exhibited his talent in various fields, he was asked what he has enjoyed the most, to which he responded by saying that telefilms are missed by him as a performer. He told that telefilms are no more made, while he has done more than 95 projects in the genre.
“I loved the way telefilms used to narrate stories in one go just like films. Another experience which was one of its kind was ‘Pakistan Idol’ which taught me how to handle a huge crowd, for we auditioned around 17,000 contestants and it was quite a tough job managing them from the initial days of the event during the early mornings of Islamabad to finally the grand finale,” he says.
However, we have observed that it is not only telefilms that are missing, but as far as drama is also concerned, Mirza has been away for quite a long time with the exception of Amin Iqbal’s ‘Deedan’ which is his latest project and also his personal favourite owing to the challenges it involved, both in terms of its location and its character development. There was a time when Mirza was doing one serial after another, such as ‘Roag’, ‘Mera Saaein’, ‘Hum Tum’, ‘Barf’, ‘Sabz Pari Laal Kabootar’ and ‘Kaash Aisa Ho’. When asked the reason for his disappearance, the actor told, “I don’t agree with the idea of the hero being the villain until the second last episode and transforming all of a sudden into a nice person. This constant negative portrayal of male characters was something that wasn’t motivating me to go for the serials being made. I still maintain the stance that grey characters are fine, but portraying genders in black or white is not something admirable. Good and evil characteristics co-exist in human beings and that is how they should be represented.”
When asked regarding stories which create a strong impact, he said, “Snapping out of a character is also a process like getting into a character. The time durations vary from work to work and one has to work hard with one’s personality to manage roles and then accept that one is an actor and has to walk out of a character after all. My works which created a strong impact on me were ‘Ward #7’ and ‘Patriyan’, both representing the psyches of people from different sections of the society and it has been the similar kind of work mostly which has influenced me.”
The films which Mirza has given to the industry can be divided into two categories. His commercial films include ‘Bachana’, ‘Arth’ and ‘Teri Meri Love Story’ and his art films include ‘Seedlings’, ‘Josh’, ‘Insha Allah’ and ‘Dukhtar’. While his own art films were made in the very initial days of Pakistani cinema’s revival, Mirza considers ‘Cake’ and ‘Laal Kabootar’ as those art films which have given hope to parallel cinema.
“It might seem a difficult task in the current scenario to form an audience for such films, but I believe that gradually, parallel cinema will develop its own importance. These kind of films have their own following. In this era of Netflix, when films like these are sent on the web, they gain appreciation from their respective lovers. An example from my own films is of ‘Dukhtar’ which received a lot of admiration,” he says.
The actor’s love for cinema is also evident from the fact that when Pakistani cinema was completely dead, he launched a coffee table book titled Silent Cinema incorporating posters of himself with various actresses from the industry such as Ayesha Khan, Mehwish Hayat and Sanam Baloch. This was the actor’s way of releasing his frustration on the silence of Pakistani cinema and also an expression of his desire for films. Silent Cinema, according to Mirza, was a visual representation of an actor’s wish to act in film projects.
As far as his future projects are concerned, Mirza names one, which is a serial titled ‘Dushman’, and expresses a wish to do experimental but socially relevant work.
“I have massive plans for the future, for which I keep researching. If God wills, I’ll be able to fulfil all my desires related to showbiz for it’s a sea full of challenges and opportunities,” he says.
This desire for innovation is also what leads the actor to change his looks time and again, for he believes in the transformation of attire for entering a certain zone. He does this to keep himself ready for any kind opportunity that comes in the way.
“I watch and read a lot of stuff which also keeps me updated with the latest trends. Along with my gut feeling, the content that I observe also plays a prior part in my looks.”
No wonder we found Mirza in curly hair in ‘Hazaaron Saal’, in straight, silky hair in ‘Kaash Aisa Ho’ and in dishevelled hair in Hadiqa Kiani’s Saraiki song video “Dholan”.
The writer is a freelance journalist and can be reached at [email protected]