Everyone said my Diyar-e-Dil role would be career suicide: Hareem Farooq

Actor and producer recalled how she went against everyone’s advice to play an older character

Star actor and producer Hareem Farooq declared she had no regrets at all about playing the mother of an actor her own age in Diyar-e-Dil in a recent appearance on Hasna Mana Hai. She said almost everyone she knew at the time advised her that the role would be “career suicide”. 

“It was my third drama, and I just followed my heart,” recalled the actor, who portrayed the journey of Osman Khalid Bhatt’s character's mother over the years in what ended up becoming a breakthrough role for her. “Everyone told me that if I take up the role, I’ll never get another lead again. They told me it would be career suicide. It was a challenge for me to play that role, but she was such a powerful character.”

Unmoved by the naysayers in her orbit, Farooq walked through the simple benchmarks that prompt her to accept a script. “If I like a character or a plot or even the team I am going to be working with, then why not?” remarked the actor. Adopting a philosophical approach to her profession, Farooq firmly believes that whatever is destined to happen will happen. “Failure is just in our minds,” she advised.

Farooq credits all her present day success to her parents, who she asserted are her biggest supporters. 

“I have only made it this far because of them,” she expressed warmly. The daughter of two doctors, Farooq revealed that she was always an exemplary student at school, and initially started pursuing a degree in law before switching her field to journalism and sociology. 

“My parents had always told me to complete my degree before taking up acting,” she said. “That was their condition: that I had to finish my degree.”

Upon completing her degree, Farooq all but walked into an audition for a play and got the part on account of there being no one else to cast. Since then, she has not looked back, and along with taking up both acting and producing projects, she was also the first female celebrity to host the Pakistan Super League in 2018. 

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