From kaarigar to actor: the journey of Shuja Sami

He got his first break when he ran into a shoot to deliver some clothes

KARACHI: One trait common to all entertainment industries of the world is the number of struggling performers, trying to make it big therein. Many of them have interesting pasts, having lived through hard times. Others are more privileged, handed opportunities on a silver platter.

But Shuja Sami’s life is like neither; it’s a story of an obedient son fulfilling his father’s dying wish.

Shuja is a Pakistani actor with nearly 50 dramas serials and two films under his belt, including Sarmad Khoosat’s Manto and Ashir Azeem’s Maalik. But acting was a dream given to him by his father.



For years, the emerging talent worked as a needle-worker at an embroidery shop in Defence. “About 15 years ago, I used to visit the shop after school frequently. TV personality Ishrat Hashmi’s clothes were made there and one day, my brother took me to deliver the clothes and there was a shooting going on,” he told The Express Tribune. “Qasim Jalali was the director. He saw me and asked me to sit in the crowd as an extra in a scene depicting a baat pakki. That was it. That was my first acting experience.”

PHOTO:FILE

But Shuja never followed up on acting after that. He continued to work at his embroidery shop, occasionally dabbling with it but never pursuing it properly. “Later on, I quit the embroidery business and switched to real estate but that didn’t work out,” he said. “Then in 2010, my father fell sick. On September 22, 2010, he said his last words to me. He said, ‘Yeh beta mera naam roshan karega.’ (My son will make me proud). That was what made me join the entertainment business. I had to make a name for myself and make him proud.”

For the last seven years, Shuja has quietly been building up his portfolio, working alongside some of the big names in the industry. In fact, he took formal training in acting when he seriously started pursuing the field. “In early 2010s, I had a chance meeting with a director named Syed Waseem Raza and he had just established an institute called Pakistan Creative Minds Academy on Shahrahe Faisal. It was shut down within a few months but I learned acting from him at his institute,” he shared.

Although the actor has played several supporting characters and antagonists through his career, Shuja is yet to be a protagonist; the hero. “My mentor taught me that I shouldn’t care if it’s a lead role or not. You should lead with your character. So, whatever character I played, I made sure it registered in people’s minds,” he said, adding how he was highly praised for his small but important role in Manto.



Still a  newcomer, Shuja finds most people working in the industry to be quite respectful and professional, contrary to what he had heard previously. “The entertainment industry is just like all other industries,” he said. “There are people who have been nothing but professional. And then, there are still selfish people who would exploit you to save their money.”

As to how far he thinks he’s come after working for the better part of the last decade, Shuja said, “Wo kehte hain na, abhi to ibtida-e-ishq hai, aage aage dekhiye hota hai kya (It’s just the beginning. Let’s see what happens later). I think one should give any industry at least 10 years to see if you can make it. I’m still in the struggling phase and have a target to achieve by 2020. I am aiming to do a film as the lead by then.”

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