Badshah Begum, a Rafay Rashdi and Momina Duraid production, is off to a promising start. With just the first two episodes out, the story revolves around various characters of a feudal family and a bitter sibling rivalry that tears at the seams of normalcy. All that is yet to develop of course, but we see glimpses of all the main characters – Zara Noor Abbas Siddiqui, Ali Rehman Khan, Farhan Saeed, Yasir Hussain – and know that the drama is going to have a lot to offer as it progresses.
But one relatively newer face has caught our attention: Abul Hasan. With various other projects under his belt, (one being Ghisi Piti Mohabbat, it seems that Badshah Begum is his latest offing and perhaps his first villanous role. So far, we’ve only seen a glimpse of him so it’s too soon to understand how his character drives the plot, but what we do know is that Murad (Abul Hasan) is going to be one of the most hated characters on the show.
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“Mujhe bahut galiyan parhni wali hain,” he laughed when Something Haute caught up with the actor. He reveals that this is the first time he’s doing such a character, in terms of the way Murad looks and behaves, but when he read the script for the first, he was instantly drawn to his personality.
“Murad is like a fish – woh kisi ke haath nai ayega,” is what Hasan said while commenting on the character but not giving away too much. What he did speak about in detail though, was the way Murad’s look was designed by Hasan, with the help of the show’s production team.
“I created an entire back story for Murad so that I could sit with it and believe that Murad is me, everything he’s doing now and that has happened to him in the past actually happened with me and now I’m responding to it.”
That’s how he was able to put some thought into the way Murad will look and dress. “He’s clearly an odd one out in the Pir family, but I wanted him to look flashy.” So Hasan put a lot of thought into what accessories he would wear, what watch would be on his wrist and shared his references with the production’s stylist. “I went and bought him chains, earrings and a gold rolex (fake one of course),” he laughed.
In fact, Hasan also felt like the character needed long hair. “I had short hair at the time, so I shared my ideas with the stylist and there was concern that hair extensions end up looking fake sometimes. But I hired a get-up artist and we made it work!”
Working on the character’s look in this much detail was all Hasan’s own doing. “My philosophy is, if you have to do something, do it well. Otherwise don’t.”
What’s also interesting is that Hasan hasn’t undergone any training for acting in the past so every second of effort he’s putting into his craft, is coming from a pure place of passion and self learning. “I just do what makes sense to me. And hope that it translates into something good for the audience,” he concluded.
