Sarmad Khoosat, who directed Fawad Khan in the 2011 hit Pakistani drama Humsafar, says though he finds the Khoobsurat star a brilliant performer, the actor does not feature on his wish list.
Sarmad, who also helmed Fawad's Pakistani show Ashk in 2012, says the duo enjoyed a nice relationship till Humsafar but things have not been the same between them post the show.
"I like Fawad as an actor and a star but our approach and our process of working don't match and for me the process of filming a drama or a film is more important than the outcome.
"Our actor-director relationship was extremely nice till Humsafar but after that I had reservations about a few things with him," the 35-year-old director told PTI in a telephonic interview from Karachi.
When asked if the difference means that the two would not pair up for any project in future, Sarmad said, "It's nothing like that. There is no animosity between us. I might work with him in future. I feel Fawad, Mahira and I should work together again. But I don't have a feeling that 'Oh, I want to do something with Fawad'. My wish list does not have him." The young actor-director, however, says he is very happy with the praise that Fawad has got in India.
"He deserves it. He is a great actor. I am very happy that people love him here because he is so talented. This should hopefully lead to more exchange between the two countries because they are so similar in culture and people that I don't even feel I am in a different nation whenever I am in India," said Sarmad.
His show Humsafar, a 23-episode long love story, will air from next week on India's Zindagi channel.
Humsafar is adapted from Pakstani author Farhat Ishtiaq's novel of the same name and depicts the trials and tribulations of a married couple, Asher and Khirad.
The young director feels people will connect to the drama as both the countries have common emotions.
"We share heritage, history, language and so much more. The universal emotion which clicks with people from both the contries is same that is romance. I am ecstatic that the show is reaching out to an audience which should have witnessed it much before. In fact, our inside joke was that this show is like Bollywood film Maine Pyar Kiya, which is a love story between a poor girl and rich boy and that's the basic plot of Humsafar too," he said.
The director said Humsafar was his first romantic play. He had mostly done dark plays so he was apprehensive about helming it. Sarmad is now glad that he did the show as he feels drama has an old school charm to it, which is rare to find in serials today.
"When I read the story, I thought it is so unreal and different from whatever I had done in the past. The show felt like a fairytale and I thought let me try this new genre. "Humsafar has a very simple storyline and has melodrama but we all got through that initial block soon. The show has a retro feel to it and moves like a fantasy where everything gets stuck on these two characters and rest doesn't matter," he said, adding that the show's quality was alleviated by the cast.
"Fawad and Mahira both are genuine people, who put their soul in the show. Even the cliche scenes were made believable because of great acting. I have to give credit to all my actors for making it such a big success," Sarmad said.
