Full throttle

From humble beginnings to Hollywood, Adnan Siddiqui has indeed come a long way

People like Adnan Siddiqui age like fine wine. With over two-and-a-half decades in the entertainment industry, the actor has an illustrious career to his credit. From dramas like Meri Zaat, Zarra e Benishan, Doraha and Zebunnisa to starring alongside Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, the heartthrob has done it all. Yet, he is far from hanging up his boots. The Express Tribune sits down with Adnan to make sense of what it is that we find so endearing about the man.

For starters, there is his versatility. Besides being an accomplished actor, Adnan has a great passion for cricket and music. He plays a range of instruments including the flute, percussions and keyboard. Moreover, he is also a successful entrepreneur and advertiser. One would think Adnan would probably want to sit back and revel in the fame and fortune he has deservedly found. Instead, he is showing no signs of slowing down. And with Pakistani cinema getting a new lease on life, Siddiqui isn’t one to watch from the sidelines.

“Films like Jawani Phir Nahi Ani are proof that we have potential and great talent. All we need to do is to tap it,” Adnan says. He himself is starring in upcoming film Yalghaar, to be released either later this year or the next. But unlike some of his peers, he doesn’t seem too keen on making a foray into Bollywood. “I was offered a couple of films, but it never quite worked out. I am also a father and have a moral responsibility towards my children. If tomorrow, my daughters were to decide on a career in acting, I want to be able to tell her to go ahead and do it without any hesitance,” he says, in a veiled reference to contentious content in Bollywood productions. It is apparent that the father of three, once a man mauled by ladies, has come of age.

He chuckles at the memories of yesteryears, 1989, to be exact. That was when Adnan first arrived in show business as a ramp model. “Boys weren’t even given clothes to wear at the shows; they had to get their own. I remember I used to borrow clothes of friends to wear on the ramp,” he recalls with amusement. His first television appearance was in the following year, in a play called Khwabon ki Zanjeeren, in which he played a young man who had returned to Pakistan after completing his education abroad and decided to stay and teach children in his locality — all against his father’s will.



Adnan hasn’t forgotten the first time he got paid for a job either. “I got a cheque of Rs500 and didn’t even have a bank account at the time. The cheque is framed and still hangs at my house. It’s a great conversation starter,” he quips. Before Adnan was propelled to superstardom, following the drama serial Aroosa in 1991, he also appeared in a couple of commercials, like the first-ever advertisement for a cellular phone in Pakistan. That and a Gillette commercial put him on the radar of Men’s Club Magazine which dubbed him the highest paid model in the country.

“That play (Aroosa) changed my life. Every actor you meet will say this to you: there is that one performance that sets you up for life and that was mine,” he says. The play was aired on PTV and Siddiqui made his first appearance in the fifth episode. “The day after the episode was aired, I was on my way to PTV to shoot the next one. At around 11am, I had my first brush with fame at a traffic signal near Karachi’s Gora Qabristan. I was on my motorcycle and people started recognising me and asking for autographs.” He laughs as he narrates the story, “I was late for the shoot that day and [director] Qasim Jalali was furious. ‘Jumma Jumma aath din huay hain industry mein tumhe aur mizaaj nahin mil rahay’, Jalali said to me. And I kept trying to explain to him that I had been stuck in traffic giving people autographs.” Adnan adds that the director and actor Talat Hussain believed him a few days later when they had to shoot at a girls college and faced a similar situation.

As his mood turns introspective, Adnan remembers his recently deceased father, fondly reminiscing the time when he went to him to seek permission to start acting. “He told me I was old enough to make my own decisions, but that I should remember never to be mediocre, no matter what I did. He also told me to always remember that to every peak there’s a downfall, so we should have it in us to accept the highs and lows of life with grace.”

The highs of Adnan’s life have indeed been many. But one of his proudest moments was when he got a role in the film based on journalist Daniel Pearl’s murder, A Mighty Heart (2007). One of the spot boys he knew called him up one day and said auditions were being held for a Hollywood film at Pearl Continental Hotel and all the best actors from Pakistan were on the list. The spot boy told Adnan he should be there too, but the actor wasn’t completely convinced. “I was in half a mind to go. I was busy shooting for a serial already, but I made it to the auditions nonetheless. They called me back for a second audition and then a third, not telling me exactly what we were auditioning for,” shares Siddiqui. He was finally told he would be starring in the Paramount production  with Angelina Jolie and Irrfan Khan. “It took me a while to realise that when they said Angelina, they meant Angelina Jolie! The realisation, of course, made me ecstatic,” says Siddiqui. “The thing that makes me sad is that that Irrfan Khan and I both started our Hollywood careers with the same film but because of a lack of  media support, no one even knows I was in the film.”

For Adnan, striving to be better is a constant, untiring process, which is why he takes criticism seriously. However, he feels criticism should not come for the sake of criticism. “As a nation, we need to learn to produce constructive criticism. It is easy to be a hater. Instead, be someone whose criticism helps others in becoming better at what they do.”

Hurmat Majid is a subeditor at The Express Tribune.
She tweets @bhandprogramme

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, November 8^th, 2015.