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News of the Day: Pakistan’s film industry is growing every day, which means we’re seeing a lot of newcomers. It’s more exciting when you see familiar faces from the music world trying their hand at acting for the big screen and we’re seeing a lot of those lately. We know that Haroon Shahid from SYMT is making his acting debut opposite Mahira Khan. Bilal Khan of ‘Bachaana’ fame is starring in Sammi opposite Mawra Hocane. Ali Azmat will be appearing in Jhol which also features Urwa Hocane. And now Rachel Viccaji has been added to this very star-studded list too.

Rachel first came into the limelight when she took the stage for Nida Butt’s version of the hit musical, Mamma Mia. She then took place beside her sister when she joined Coke Studio for back up vocals. In season 5, she appeared alongside Overload and sang a very rocked out version of ‘Neray Aah‘ before again appearing in season 9 with Kashif Ali, singing ‘Shamaan Pai Gaiyaan‘.

The singer-actress is now making her big screen debut with Haseeb Hassan’s Parwaaz Hai Junoon that features some pretty big names such as Hamza Ali Abbasi, Shamoon Abbasi, Shaz Khan and Hania Amir. Rachel confirmed that this film will be her cinematic debut. “I have earlier acted in plays and dabbled in direction. I’ve done some musical theatre as well. But yes, this is my screen debut,” she said.

Rachel also shared some details of her character in the film. “My character’s name is Ujala. She’s the tough girl in the group. As far as training is concerned, before each spell, we would have a few days of training or drills, preparing us for the scenes we were going to shoot.” From what we’ve heard from other actors in the film, the entire cast went through a very intense and rigorous training session before the film and had to shoot in freezing temperatures. Seems like Rachel is off to a good start!

 

Manal Faheem Khan

The author is Contributing Editor at Something Haute who has studied film and journalism from SZABIST. Will be found at the gym if not in the office.