There will be blood: ‘Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam’ cast on playing femme fatales

At its first glance, Qatil Haseenaon Ke Naam (QHKN) trailer might remind you of ZEE5's Pakistani offering, Churails, but Meenu Gaur's Qatil Haseenayen aspire to be a lot more than just angry women grasping the world in a chokehold.

 The ‘desi noir’, about six Femme Fatales, featuring Sanam Saeed, Sarwat Gilani, Mehar Bano, Faiza Gillani, Beo Raana Zafar, Samiya Mumtaz and Eman Suleman dropped on the streaming giant this Friday.  The Meenu Gaur directorial also features Osman Khalid Butt, Ahsan Khan and Sheheryar Munawar.

The Express Tribune sat down with the cast and caught up on all that is in offering and how Pakistan’s OTT presence can be improved.

Murderers on the loose

Sarwat agreed to do QHKN because of its 'powerful scheme of narrative'. "I did QHKN after Churails because both shows are completely different,” Sarwat recalled.

Other than the star-studded cast, the trope of ‘desi noir’ really excited Sarwat as well. The actor, while introducing the genre to the Pakistani audience, added, "Noir was essential. The idea of playing femme fatale seemed promising, so all of this just came together for me. And then Mehek is very different from Sara in Churails. The latter was very contained, very put together. Mehek, on the contrary, is a hopeless romantic. There's a lot of ambiguity in this character. She's stuck in a scenario which doesn't let her become the person she really wished to be."

But it wasn't just Sarwat who immediately took a liking to the powerful script. Meherbano was just as compelled to work on a feminist drama, again. "This is unlike anything we have done in Churails," the actor, who had shared screen space with Sarwat, is reuniting with her last co-star for Meenu's latest show. "Noir is something our audience isn't too familiar with and it was exciting to bring that to Pakistan. The genre is new since we are desis."

Speaking about her character, Meher shared Anarkali is nothing like Churails' Zubaida. "Anarkali is flamboyant. She's loud and she's out there. She takes no prisoners and takes life by the balls," she laughed, adding she doesn't mean it to be taken in a negative connotation but Anarkali is unlike anything she's done before.

Just as her co-stars, Sanam, who plays Zuvi in the show, too, was drawn to its captivating script. "It just kind of fell in my lap," the Zindagi Gulzar Hai star shared. "We were all just sort of stuck with coronavirus and the work, which was being offered, was very less. So, when you end up with a script this powerful, and that too by Meenu, which is being aired on an international streaming platform? It's like a double whammy," she laughed. Since the six-episode series revolve around one character in each episode, it wasn't a hassle for Sanam to fit it into her schedule. "It was a week-long commitment of work and it worked wonderfully for me, so I immediately agreed to it.

Sanam, who called taking up the project a no-brainer, further shared details about her character. "Oh, Zuvi is conniving, cunning and manipulative. She's ditzy but then she's not. She has this need to have this picture-perfect life and she's willing to go to any lengths to have it."

The freedom of OTT

 For Sanam, it's the freedom of the medium that has drawn the audience towards streaming giants. "OTT gives the artist and the audience much-needed freedom," the Cake star commented. "When it comes to television, there's a proper regulatory body that oversees the content and that's where the problem stems from." Saying how censorship has somewhat taken the progression away from Pakistani serials, Sanam said, "The content that has been shown on the television is affected due to national censorship. Yes, the content needs to be managed but blatantly covering it would not make sense. One-dimensional shows are a no-go in 2021. I have no answer if you ask me why there are no good scripts for television these days."

Like Sanam, Sarwat, too, shared how she doesn't have any reasoning as to why the producers are unable to provide good content. "TRPs are a major problem," the actor asserted. "Media heads need to be more vigilant of current issues. Safe storytelling is a no. There has to be progression. We have the talent; we have the actors - we have the potential to make something brilliant. Thanks to OTT, we have done it. You can't just cast biggest stars and call them '2 takay ki aurat',” asserted Sarwat. "I did Mata-e-Jaan a decade ago. I changed some scenes from it because I didn't agree with them but I cannot change the script. I don't conform to half of the content that is airing now. It's irresponsible."

Adding to the same argument, Meher too, thinks the channel owners are to blame. "We need people who are willing to take chances. Yes, it will be an experiment and the profits will be lesser than usual but it will be quality content," she shared. "Showbiz is a money-making business, therefore stakeholders are less inclined to take risks. We, as actors, do not have the ultimate call to change the script. If we do express some reservations, there are people who will not agree to it. The onus doesn't fall on us."

But Meher does sense the change is approaching fast. "Cable television has restrictions. With OTT, women like us are being represented. You don't see any one of us on television anymore because the scripts are terrible. We don't want to be slapped onscreen. No one really listens to us," she continued. "With OTT, filmmakers are willing to think outside the box. Naturally, we are more drawn to it."

Sanam concurred. "We are not regressing, we are at a standstill," the Firaaq actor opined. "We have had good shows. Sonya Hussyn has done some brilliant work with highlighting the social and mental issues in the projects she has taken. But not everyone can do it. We [as actors] don't have a lot of say. If we don't do the said serial, someone else will." 

She added, "But now that we have OTT, I don't have to work on scripts I don't agree with. My soul is satisfied. That being said, I will be the first one to show if the content we plan on showing is about progression. We have to understand how powerful a medium television is. We just have been using it wrong."

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