Arif Hassan is not at all an actor: 'Zindagi Tamasha' breakout star shares his journey

On the second episode of Sarmad Sultan Khoosat’s podcast titled Zindagi Tamsha Deconstructed, the celebrated filmmaker and actor invited Arif Hassan, the protagonist of his critically acclaimed film, Zindagi Tamasha. The episode saw the two artists in conversation as they spoke about Arif’s rise to fame with his breakout role as Rahat Khawaja in the film and how most viewers and critics were unfamiliar with his name and previous work in the field.

Beginning the conversation with an introduction of himself, Arif revealed that he often gets mistaken for other better-known Arif Hassans in Pakistan—one who is an established and well-reputed architect and town planner and another who is a retired Lieutenant General and President of the Pakistan Olympic Association. In this regard, he shared a funny anecdote of the time when a news channel mistook him for the town planner and called him on live television to discuss the case of a building collapse and how the error was caught on camera.

Delving into his journey towards the arts, Arif admitted that he did not have much experience in acting prior to taking on the pivotal role in Zindagi Tamasha. In fact, he had only partaken in a few theater projects over the years and those too had been a thing of the past by the time he began work on the 2019 film.

“Arif Hassan is not at all an actor," he shared. "Till now, I have only done three or four theatre projects. And that too, a long time ago, back in the 1990s." During the discussion, the actor also revealed that his friend, writer and journalist Mohammed Hanif, had played an important role in connecting him with Sarmad, which eventually led to them working together on Zindagi Tamasha.

“That person’s journey, how he was a happy and totally fine person and then he suddenly went into that state…I felt that,” said Arif of his experience embodying Rahat, who is forced to face society’s wrath when a video of him dancing to a song goes public.

Zindagi Tamasha is a 2019 offering that received many awards at international film festivals, including best film at the UK Asian Film Festival, Asian World Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, and Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival. The film also stars Samiya Mumtaz, Eman Suleman, Nadia Afghan, and Adeel Afzal. It was recently released on YouTube to Pakistani audiences after a prolonged period of uncertainty.