From punk rock to video game fame

Immortalised as Quan Chi in the new Mortal Kombat game thanks to AI, and appearing as Len in season four of the hit HBO show Succession, Shahjehan Khan is living his dreams as an artist. Other than acting and modeling, the Pakistani-American based in Boston, also maintains a musical career close to his heart and is proud of his punk band The Kominas. As a podcast creator, he narrated the Pakistani-American experience post 9/11 in King of the World. The Express Tribune catches up with Khan before he makes even bigger strides in Hollywood and — if his wishes keep coming true— in Pakistan.

ET: You have a versatile portfolio as an artist. Do you consider yourself a musician foremost or an actor?

SK: I don’t know if I would consider myself one thing. I’ve definitely been a performer and that can be thought of in different ways whether its music or acting or voice acting or modeling video game characters. I have been a musician professionally for 20 years so maybe out of all the things I have done that the longest in a professional capacity. I’ve been an actor now for about 10 years and a podcast producer now for a couple of years and an audio book narrator. So I feel lucky to be able to do all these different things.

ET: Although you are in a punk band, you also play the rubab. I was wondering who has taught you.

SK: Interestingly, I have been playing the rubab for just a few years. I wouldn’t call myself a player of the rubab yet by any stretch of the imagination. My Amma bought me one from Pakistan as it was something that I always wanted to play.

ET: Has representing your identity always been a sort of mission for you or just something that happened naturally?

SK: This is a very good question and I think I would have answered it in different ways in different points in my life. I think there’s different levels to it. There’s the Diaspora stuff that all of us second-generation desi kids, American kids, there’s certain elements of that which you carry with you regardless of what you think about it, if that makes sense. We’re also at an interesting point in all of these conversations especially in entertainment where rightfully these discussions are happening – and they have been happening for a very, very long time but in terms of people who were actually curating media that has widened quite a bit so it’s enabled whether you want to call it marginalized stories or stories that are traditionally seen outside of the frame of the narrative. So for me in America certain stories have been told, so that stuff has widened.

Especially in the early part of my career, with me band The Kominas it was very purposefully and noisily [it was a punk band] focused on putting ourselves out there and making space for ourselves in a way because we didn’t feel represented, saying things and building a community in that way. So it was important to me but also as an artist you just want to do good, make cool, meaningful art. It’s a constant struggle between the two for me. I always want to be in a place where I am redefining stuff for myself.

ET: Did your podcast King of the World have a wide outreach within the Pakistani community or even other minority communities?

SK: Yes. When we did it we had a particular audience in mind but it ended up being more of a universal story. Obviously it was focused on 9/11 and all that Muslim identity stuff but many non-Muslim people related to it. It wasn’t an overwhelming billion download kind of thing but we ended up winning some awards and it did tell that story in a way that maybe people hadn’t heard before. I was really lucky to be on Shahzad Ghias’s show The Pakistan Experience to talk about it. For me, it felt like a culmination of all those different identities that you asked me about. I felt like I was finally able to put it all out there. So it was a very human experience.

ET: Do you think representation in famous television series like Succession has helped change the US media landscape in a way or is it also something that has been done before? Have you noticed a change in recent years?

SK: I would like to think that it’s all part of a wave. With my band The Kominas, I feel really proud of the stuff we did and the community that it created. To this day people connect with our music. In terms of acting, Succession was my first ever role for a TV show, which I still can’t believe happened. I didn’t realize [what it would mean for Pakistanis] and how many people were saying it was so cool to see a Pakistani, or people looked up and said ‘Wait, is that a Pakistani?’ The character is kind of this nondescript, ‘ethnically ambiguous’ — it’s this term that gets thrown around a lot as a joke sometimes — which is the look that I have which is why I was able to be this Len guy. He even had his own Reddit thread. But then also I guess my face works in Mortal Kombat. I also did this silly murder mystery movie for Lifetime channel in which I was also this nondescript character. So it’s actually been cool to be able to do that.

Whereas, I’m realizing as we’re talking right now, that my band and my podcast has been very identity focused, it’s kind of the right time when people like us can finally insert ourselves and become part of culture. Hopefully, one day it won’t be such a big deal that, ‘oh my god, there’s a Pakistani person on Succession’ or whatever.

ET: Tell me how exciting it was to land the Succession role.

SK: Last year was a big year for my acting career. I did two major things. One is this movie Aftermath which has not been released yet but that was my first big supporting role. It’s this crazy action thriller which is about a terrorist attack but it is committed by US marines on a bridge here in Boston. I’m not one of the terrorists, I actually a have a cool little role in there. The other thing I did was the Lifetime movie that I told you about. Basically after those two things happened, I was able to sign with a bigger management agency, Malissa Young Management. I started getting bigger TV auditions and Succession was one of them. I got three different auditions for it. These small parts are called day player or costars, when you have line or two here and there. The thing with them is you never know, it’s kind of the first step often. A smaller costar role will maybe lead to a guest star role then maybe that leads to a series regular or something.

This particular role was supposed to be a random Party Guest #4 originally. And you do so many of these [auditions]. I have done thousands of auditions in my life! It gets to a point where you have to treat it as a numbers game. You can’t get too emotionally invested if you don’t hear back. I’m also fortunate enough that I do lots of other stuff. I do music and work in media so I don’t just do acting, so not all of my emotions are invested in it. So this was the third audition and I found out that I got booked and I couldn’t believe it. I live in Boston and the shoot was in New York. So that day I literally jumped in my car without reading the whole thing properly. I assumed it was just this one line. But then while I was already on my way there, my manager called me and she read the whole offer and it turned out it was actually a whole week.

From then it turned out my character actually got a name and I got to stay in the hotel with all the cast. It was just like, these are some of the best actors on the planet and you just dream of something like this. Also for somebody like me you wonder if you get this kind of an opportunity, will you just mess it up? Will you just forget your one line? But everything went great. Everybody was super nice. It was a dream come true.

But even after all this happened, you don’t know, they might just cut your line. At the end of the day, you’ll still get credit. The honest truth is, I thought if that happens I will just say look, I proved it to myself that I could be a person on a TV show so any of these doubts that I had about ‘I did this too late in life’ or ‘I should have tried harder’ or ‘I should have gone to drama school’ all of those doubts were gone.

Anyway six months later the show actually comes out and not only did they keep the part in there, it’s actually a pretty great little thing! It’s like a memorable scene and they actually shouted me out a couple times. [It was only later] when it hit me that this is the biggest show on the planet and holy s*** this really happened, oh my god! I’m so happy and so thankful.

ET: You are immortalized in the Mortal Kombat video game now. Does that take the cake though?

SK: I’m sure you’re familiar with conversations that have been happening here, the actors’ strikes and Anil Kapoor was the first actor to win a case against AI. In the context about this discussion about AI, yes it is one of the coolest thing ever. I played Mortal Kombat as a kid. If you told me that I would be involved in the game in any way I would have died. The thing I want people to understand was that at the same time, it was a modeling gig where they scanned my face and they took nine pictures of me and from that they were able to create this entire movie and character. They paid me once, 1,000 dollars. The never have to give me credit for it officially. Now that being said, I agreed to it. I’m not upset about it. I think it gave me the opportunity think about what this whole thing means in terms of the future of our profession you know? I’m tackling it in my own way and I plan to do some funny videos about it because I love humour. I don’t take myself so seriously.

Yeah, it’s weird, like they own my face forever. They can do with it what they want. I knew I was signing away my likeness. I knew that this character Quan Chi existed before. So I kind of thought it would be more like, not exactly my face, but maybe like a combination of my face and the other face. But it is me, it is exactly like me, it has my birthmark, it has my nose shape and it’s just wild.

ET: Have your parents been supportive of your artistic career?

SK: I credit both of my parents for my love of the arts. The first concert that I ever went to as a kid was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s. My mom was the biggest supporter of my music career. She put me in piano lesson. She always wanted to play the guitar, so she got me a guitar. I think yeah they were worried about the professional aspect of it that I wouldn’t make any money but honestly my parents are my biggest supporters and they’re so proud of me. I would be nowhere without them. I’m really very lucky.

ET: Have you felt any similarities in the sort of Islamophobia that was born post-9/11 and the sort of Islamophobia that exists in the US today? Maybe even just in Boston or even just your social circle.

SK: I think it feels very similar to post 9/11. But I think the difference that I have seen is that I think people are more kind of aware of stuff because we’ve all got these little cameras now. We all live in our own little social bubbles though right? I’ll give you an example: On October 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, I was on a stage at a film festival here in Boston reading a treatment of a film about the Holocaust. I can’t make this up. This is what I was doing. This was early in the morning before any of us heard about it.

I grew up in America, in a very interfaith community. I went to churches and synagogues and my parents are champions of dialogue have always been closely tied to interfaith work throughout Boston. They will often go out of their way to church groups and places where people have never met a Muslim, they will be the ones to say, hey we’re not all bad people. Unfortunately, it’s a scary time. I wish I didn’t feel terrified but I kinda do. Because it’s very reminiscent of post 9/11 where we are being asked to condemn things and speak on behalf of all Muslims and there appears to be very little complexity. The difference also is that now we have an Amna Nawaz on PBS News who’s asking questions, Mehdi Hassan has a mainstream show so that’s kinda cool. Young people are more informed too. In the last five years or so, our version of racial reckoning and things on the whole people have access to all this information.

ET: What projects do you have in the pipeline?

SK: I’m always auditioning and doing things filmwise. I’ve done a couple of indie films this year. My company is producing a feature film anthology called Ramadan America which is five films tied to the American Muslim experience of Eid, there’s some drama, some comedy. We’re shooting them all right now. I’m also working on an exciting new podcast called Witness which is about Martha’s Vineyard and kind of the history of it. Musically, I’m doing a bunch of projects. I’m playing with Ravi Shavi, I was touring this summer and that stuff is always ongoing. And like I told you I’m thinking of doing something funny with this Mortal Kombat stuff. One thing all the fans have said is that I can go to video game conventions now and kind of just show up and see what happens.

I really have always wanted to do some project musically in Pakistan and I'm dying to work in Pakistani TV and cinema. Hey, Pakistani directors! I'll be your token American since I've been the token brown guy here for so long.