Actor-turned-director, Danish Nawaz appeared in an interview with a publication and shared his journey from getting small roles to becoming a successful director.
Nawaz reflected on long and winding road he took to becoming a director because being a comedian wasn’t enough for him.
Nawaz has been receiving praises from Pakistanis for his Ramzan TV serial. He told the outlet, “When you are showcased in roles from a single genre – in my case, comedy - it is very easy to be labelled as a comedian. I didn't want that. It was obvious the audience loved my work as an actor in sitcoms. But I wanted to do more than that, I wanted to experiment. Hence, I decided to step in the direction."
He continued, "I began by directing few telefilms, but I still wasn't directing a whole drama. It was 2016 when I went to Humayun Saeed with Sun Yaara and he gave me a go-ahead. Since then, I never looked back."
While talking about his Ramzan TV drama, Nawaz said, "When we started shooting for Chupke Chupke, our goal wasn't to make something better than Suno Chanda but the result has been very fulfilling.”
He added, “The drama is written by the same playwright, Saima Akram Chaudhry, hence one would think it had similar tropes. However, I wholeheartedly believe that a massive responsibility also sits on the director's shoulders. Since it was a rom-com, I was in my comfort zone. I know the genre, I know comedy. That's why it turned out to be so special."
Danish talked about how the viewers now know what they want to watch. He recalled, "In the early 2000s, when Star Plus was on its rise in Pakistan even we used it as a reference point to create similar content. But the formula failed miserably. People hated those dramas and then the directors came to realise it wasn't working out. And so we changed our gears.”
He stated, "We already had a template in form of PTV to learn from and as soon as we came back to our roots of more family-oriented, socially relevant dramatic content, we won over our audiences again."
Nawaz also spoke about significance of producers, he stated, “The director's vision takes a backseat here. It gets lost when a businessman decides what can and what won't make money. That's where we are lacking if you ask me. We are so focused on the budget that we don't pay much heed to the content. Selection of stories is very important as well.”
He concluded, "When we talk about making a different film - a biopic let's say - what matters is how we are shooting the said film. What parts are we focusing on, what aspect of their lives are we highlighting? It can be a simple thing, but as I said, the vision is imperative."
