No longer the boy-next-door

Mikaal Zulfiqar talks romantic rejections and blooming career

In an interview with Vasay Chaudhry, British-Pakistani actor Mikaal Zulfiqar shared multifarious details about his life and everything that has shaped him up to be the individual that he is today. From his not-hobbies to the trajectory of his career, it is evident through his relaxed attitude that Mikaal surely possesses an intriguing personality.

"Unfortunately, I'm not at all a fan of poetry," he confessed after listening to a verse. "I do understand it sometimes, though. To be honest, it's a weak point because I'm not exactly interested in it. I'm more fond of music, more lyrically driven. I've never been eager to explore any poetic inclinations."

The Chauraha actor then divulged some bold truths. "Yes, of course I've received rejections, even recently! She told me she was committed to someone," he shared. "I think people are scared of me. I don't know why, but I do get this feeling generally. Maybe it's because I'm an actor, and people think I'm not what I present myself as. Maybe I'm a try-hard."

"As I said, I think the problem is that they're intimidated. Yes, I have no real evidence of this. But I mean, after so many rejections, this was what I naturally deduced," he hilariously added. "I'm very upfront and straight-forward about these things, but I believe ultimately it comes down to the fact that the other person is scared. I've come to this conclusion myself."

The confessions took a pleasantly liberal turn. "I really like when people refer to me as the Brad Pitt of Pakistan or the Tom Cruise of Pakistan. It feels nice, so I just agree with them. In instances when people don't say it, I do the honours myself," he mentioned. "But no one has ever compared me to an Indian star. They take the flight right to Hollywood, but I'm waiting for the Hollywood big-ups to catch wind of these comparisons."

When the conversation took a turn to romance, Mikaal said, "To be honest, I'm past the age to develop crushes. But I have had them in the past. My first Bollywood crush was Sonali Bendre, and she stayed my crush for a long time. I must've been 15-16 at the time, and for 4-5 years, nobody could take her place. In Hollywood, it was probably Britney Spears, whose songs I frequently listened to because I used to idolise myself through them... with her."

He then broke into praises for his female peers. "They're all wonderful. You could say that I have a crush on all of them. But now that it's being mentioned, I'd say I had a crush on Iman Ali," he said, referring to his and Iman's feature in the music video for Abrar Ul Haq's song Sanu Tere Nal Pyar Hogaya.

Speaking of his abandoned musical pursuit, the 43-year-old actor explained, "When I wanted to become a musician, the industry wasn't flourishing. This was the time when a bunch of musicians transitioned into the acting side. There were some political issues back then, and music itself was undergoing a shift from physical to digital. Of course, now we have a structured mechanism in place, but this wasn't always the case, which is what led me to become an actor instead."

"I would love to do a comedic role," he said, before looking back on his journey in the industry so far. "Recently, I've been getting a lot of negative roles, like those of abusive husbands. Usually, when you get into a certain stream in television, you get stereotyped into attracting the same roles. I started off as the boy-next-door, but now that I'm older, I get more mature and grey characters that have both romantic and dark sides, which is more realistic."

"Sometimes I get offered college boy roles too, but I myself get put off by the idea. I don't think I can carry those roles anymore because I'm not part of that age group anymore. It requires an energy that I don't possess. I'm better off doing characters who are mature," he concluded.