People are thirsty for mellow love stories: Farhan Saeed on 'Mere Humsfar' success

Singer-turned-actor spoke about the formula behind hit romantic serials and his role as a reprising romantic hero.

Right from its first episode, the Farhan Saeed and Hania Aamir-starrer Mere Humsafar gave a serious deja vu of the 2011 blockbuster serial Humsafar. Even with noticeable differences in their elaborate storyline, the serials are eerily similar, with the Qaseem Mureed directorial also revolving around an orphaned, innocent wife facing abuse from her mother-in-law.

Penned by Saira Raza, Mere Humsafar follows the infamous trope of the protagonist escaping hell at home only to find another trial waiting for her at the in-laws. Hala (Hania Amir) has had tough luck with fortune as all kinds of neglect, betrayal, and abuse are inflicted upon her till she finds her knight in shining armour in her Husband, Qaseem (Farhan Saeed). They go through thick and thin and fight the world together! No wonder it is their electric chemistry that has caught the eyes of the drama buffs these days.

Reflecting upon his successful venture into acting, Saeed sat down for a conversation with BBC Urdu to share his take on the formula behind hit serials like Mere Humsafar and his role as a reprising romantic hero.

“I think people like mellow stories,” said Saeed on why he thinks Mere Humsafar became a hit amongst the masses. He further added, “the whole cast of this play has done a great job. Be it Saba Hameed or Hania, everyone played their characters well. The emotional, sensitive side of the play was intense and I think that's what connected well with the audience. "

Upon being asked about the formula behind a hit drama serial, Saeed shared there is no single way to do it, and if there was, then everybody would follow the same path. "You have to take that leap of faith. Oftentimes you think your play will do well and it doesn't. Likewise, you’d have lesser expectations and the play will go above and beyond with its ratings.” He added that Mere Humsafar initially fell in the latter category for him.

“As a singer, I realised an interesting thing about anticipation. While I'm in the moment and giving my best, I don’t know if the song will be good or not,” the 37-year-old actor said. “However, your project, your art changes its meaning once it is owned by the audience. You hear it with another ear, you see it from another perspective–the one that your fans are looking at it from. That, for me, is the most rewarding experience.”

Sharing an anecdote from an award show that made Saeed believe in his acting skills, he spoke with pride, “Once I got four awards for Suno Chanda. The same night, another actor also got four awards and he was the legendary Naumaan Ijaz. There can and has never been a greater compliment than that for me.”

Upon cliches and run-of-the-mill storylines, the Badshah Begum actor agreed that nowadays almost every drama has a similar plotline to that of Mere Humsafar. With an abundance of repetition in stereotypical tropes, Saeed thinks that it’s hard to tell which serial will be liked by people.

“Mere Humsafar is not the first drama that added spices to intensify the narrative," he said. “Thousands of such plays are made but they are not hits. I never thought I would do such a project. Whatever was happening in the first seven episodes before Hamza’s entry was out of my mind.”

Saeed believes that these prime time dramas should be moderated with caution because some topics are sensitive and can influence the masses. “If someone told me to raise my hand and hit a girl, I would not do it. It would be wrong of me to promote negativity or be an ideal of any sort with this behaviour,” lamented Farhan on the ‘casual’ abuse of women shown in dramas.

Saeed is known to develop striking chemistry with anyone he romances on screen. Upon asking about how the chemistry develops and his relationship with fellow actors off-screen, Saeed revealed that he seldom talks to anyone on set and rather prefers his phone and his games.

“I don’t know how chemistry is formed. Luckily, with everyone I have worked with, we ended up getting the Best Couple Award. From Iqra in Suno Chanda, Urwa from Udaari, Sohai in Prem Gali to Hania in this, if you look at our scenes, you’d think we’d talk off-screen as well, but we never talked as much on sets.”

For Saeed, it is good to have a “transparent slate for work.” He said, “There doesn't need to be animosities outside the set, but if the actors are friends and get into an argument, then it will show in the scene."

Coming to the part where fans have connected the musicians-turned-actors Saeed and Fawad Khan for their romantic roles in Mere Humsafar and Humsafar respectively, the former shared that he is always delighted by the comparison.

“Fawad was my senior in university, and when I was in Jal Band, he was a part of EP. Our music careers once aligned, and now this. I had seen Dastaan and was a fan ever since. When Fawad came to a film premiere, I went to him and told him I loved the drama. He thought I was lying since I mentioned it to him eight years later but it was the truth. I am a forever fan.”

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