With his hair neatly slicked back and blue denim defining his deltoids and accentuating his pore-less wheatish complexion, he finishes his soup with an air of nonchalance across the round coffee table. One leg casually crossed over the other, the white hotel terry slippers on his feet are in striking contrast with the rest of his appearance. This is exactly the kind of contrast Mohsin Abbas Haider likes in his roles. The 32-year-old actor, comedian, host, singer and song writer was recently in Karachi on a short visit for an awards show. Icon caught up with Mohsin in his hotel after a hard day of dance rehearsals for the show.

While his film career booming with Na Maloom Afraad (NMA), NMA2, and now Load Wedding, Mohsin is presently stunning television audiences with divergent roles.

In Zafar Mairaj’s Lashkara, he plays Choudhary Rafeeq aka Feeka, the only son and mama’s boy belonging to an upstart family from Faisalabad. He falls in love with the prettiest and most sought after girl in the neighbourhood and his nouveau-rich mum arranges the marriage. Feeka is a simple man who is extremely in love but combats trials and tribulations, his own insecurities, and villains and vamps to save his love. The romance portrayed between Feeka and Bubbly (Ushna Shah) has a chemistry that runs through extraordinarily dramatic highs and lows.

However, in complete contrast to Feeka, in Meri Gurriya Mohsin plays Dabir, a psychopath who sexually assaults little girls. “This is exactly the kind of variety I like in my work,” points out Mohsin. “The sensible, thoughtful Armaan of Muqabil, the silly, unassuming but madly-in-love Feeka of Lashkara and the spine-chilling psychopath in Meri Gurriya,” he says. “I love the way Feeka loves Bubbly, the sweet romance of a man tied to his mum’s apron strings. He can’t even hit an arrogant policeman, instead his wife retaliates! Zafar saheb paints his characters meticulously. For instance, the character of Sunny played by Imran Ashraf is the stark opposite of Feeka and I love the chemistry of it all.”

He sings and hams it up on a TV comedy show, he’s been in some of the biggest films and he’s star-struck by Sania Saeed. But all Mohsin Abbas Haider really wants is to be known as a versatile actor

For Mohsin, the story really matters when agreeing to play a certain role. “My first question is, ‘What is there in the story for me and what will I have to do?’” he says. “Secondly, I have a simple funda, I don’t want to fall into the league of actors who get out of bed in a play with gelled-back hair. After Meri Gurriya, a lot of people asked me why I accepted the role of a psychopath, warning me that I may never again be cast as a hero, but I have no insecurities that way. If you ask me whose footsteps am I following in, I would say that I see myself trying to be a Noman Ijaz, Qavi Khan, Sania Saeed, Shafi Mohammed, Khayyam Sarhadi, Irrfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Manoj Bajpai and Vijay Raaz. For me there’s the good-looking league, and then there is the actor league. I want to be known as an actor.”

Is it not important for an actor to be good-looking? “Well, if one is good-looking then it is a plus point, but all of us can’t be Fawad Khan,” he smiles. “There is Bilal Abbas Khan and a few others too who are good-looking and can act very well.”

Mohsin got down to some serious shredding when Nabeel Qureshi told him that NMA2 has a beach song where he is required to be go shirtless. “Although I had been working out since my university days, I knew that it would require some dedicated hard work,” he says. “I asked Vasay Chaudhry to help me out although it doesn’t seem that he would know much about fitness,” he breaks off chuckling. “But jokes apart, he told me about Structures Gym where I trained with [celebrity trainer] Shabir Ahmed Khan. I’d get up at 6.30am and do workout for two hours, then go for the Mazaak Raat shoot and then come back and do workout for two hours again. I enjoy working out but it is the diet part that I find difficult. Main paitu aadmi hoon [I’m a glutton] and I enjoy my food but for six packs and a totally shredded body you have to stick to a high-protein diet. I stopped the special diet for a bit but have gone back to it for my next film where I need a lean, shredded look again. It’s good to have six packs, as Ranveer Singh says, but I too love my carbs.”

Who cast you as the psychopath Dabir, I ask him? “The credit for choosing me for the role goes to Dr Ali Kazmi and Ali Hassan, the director,” says Mohsin. “Dr Kazmi had done Muqabil with me earlier. He knew that I had lost a daughter, so he called to ask me if wanted to do the role. I lost my daughter a month after she was born. Her death was natural. She puked, choked and died in my arms. Since I have been through the process of becoming a father and then losing her, I can understand how one is possessive and attached, especially with daughters. Sadly, even little boys have not been spared child abuse. I realised that losing your child through child abuse and rape must be way more catastrophic than losing your child to a natural death. This was one of the factors why doing Dabir appealed to me.”

For me there’s the good-looking league, and then there is the actor league. I want to be known as an actor.”

Mohsin says Meri Gurriya has been tough for him. “It is an extremely intense and difficult role and when I accepted it, I knew that Dabir is a negative role but I didn’t know how it would affect me. I realised what it means when actors say that they needed psychiatric help after doing a certain role. I couldn’t shoot one-on-one scenes with Bakhtawar, the little girl who plays Abida. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her in the way that Dabir was required to look at Abida. Bakhtawar, who is a very talented little girl, used to come to the sets with her mum, she would record her dialogue and be sent off the sets. My scenes were shot in solo. Off camera, we would sit down with Bakhtawar and try to discuss the story with her [as much as you can explain to a child] that ‘ye ganday uncle hain, bachon ko maardete hain’ [he is a bad guy who kills children] and try to take her in confidence because there were some scenes, especially the ones to do with her kidnapping, that we had to shoot together. Some scenes in Meri Gurriya were so heavily emotional that we would end up crying after doing our shots, particularly Sania Saeed. Usually an awkward silence followed my scenes and as co-actors, we would console each other.”

Ali Hassan, the director and Mohsin researched extensively on the behaviour pattern of psychopaths. “Dabir is a very carefully thought-out character — how he behaves with his wife, his family, outsiders, how he hides behind his mum, how he can’t confront his wife directly about any issue and manipulates situations in his own insidious way. While everyone including his brother thinks he is as timid as a mouse, what he does to little girls is simply unspeakable. Dabir is deliberately not shown as overly psychotic because these people usually behave like ordinary people and try not to draw attention to themselves. They simply blend in with the rest of us,” Mohsin explains. “You can see that in continuity, his eye quivers when he is possessed by the devil in him. If I went overboard in my expressions, Ali would stop me and do a retake so that it stayed subtle.”

Were you nervous about doing Dabir? “No. I don’t get nervous. I don’t understand this attribute of mine myself. I am at some point between confidence and over-confidence. Amanullah saheb, who does Mazaaq Raat [the TV show that also features Mohsin], particularly marvelled at my guts when I was singing a song making fun of [former Punjab chief minister] Shehbaz Sharif right in front of Shehbaz Sharif when he came as a guest on the show.”

Before introducing Dabir’s role, the producers of Meri Gurriya and the team were a little apprehensive about the audiences not being mature enough to digest the role of a psychopath and rapist. Both Sajid Hasan and Sania Saeed had reservations, but the best thing is the feedback. “People have told me that we hate Dabir, but we love you for doing this role,” he says. “So the audience is mature enough to accept that slimy characters such as Dabir are very much around us. Meri Gurriya is not just about child abuse and molestation. It is about women empowerment, forced marriages and it brings forward what to do if you have a Dabir in your vicinity. The drama tells you how should his wife behave, how should the child’s parents behave, how not to be frightened but to fight back against him and the system that supports him. Each character serves an important purpose in the play,” Mohsin asserts.

Mohsin feels it was great working with Soniya Hussain. “She is a great actor, extremely professional,” he says.  “Actors such as Sania Saeed, Sajid Hasan, Faris Shafee and, in fact, everyone have justified their characters. They keep you on your toes because if they are giving their best, you have to match their performance as well.”

Working with Sania Saeed is a dream come true for Mohsin. “When Sania apa came as a guest in Mazaaq Raat, I learnt what the meaning of being star-struck was. I had tears falling from my eyes and I left the sets. I returned and the same started happening again. Then she hugged me and I told her that I am a huge fan of hers and to meet her was unbelievable. Recently she asked me what had happened back then and I told her that people often say to me that I have sad eyes. But when I had met her on the sets of Mazaaq Raat, I had seen eyes sadder than mine. She was present on the set of Mazaaq Raat but her eyes wouldn’t share the lively mood on the sets.

“Now I flaunt that I have worked with Sania Saeed and Sajid Hasan although I have worked with him previously in a telefilm. So while Meri Gurriya is a tremendously heavy and difficult project to work in, I enjoy playing the role of the psychopath Dabir.”

Some years ago, while still in college and as the president of the dramatic society, Mohsin won a singing competition from a three-time consecutive winner by singing Khamaaj. At another time he doused himself in red liquid dye to perform the climax scene of a bashed-up Shah Rukh Khan from Pardes. But even going on to the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa), Mohsin had little expectation that he would one day be a film star.

He reminisces about how he landed NMA. “Nabeel Qureshi and I have been together since eight or nine years from Aaj TV. We did The Four Man Show and Banana News Network together, then he directed Bayparwah Dola, a music video for me, then a naat. Nabeel had ideas but lacked finances and we would discuss ideas in the car on the way home or to work. After I had moved to Lahore for Mazaaq Raat, I got a call from Nabeel saying that there is this role [Moon] that has been written with me in mind. Nabeel convinced Fizza that I would do justice to Moon. Salaam hai Fizza ko jiss ne aik naye ghoray pe paisay laga diya [Salute to Fizza for betting on a new race horse]. I mean the investment ran into crores of rupees, the legendary Javed Shaikh was going to be a co-star along with the awesome Fahad Mustafa and here was this new person [me] who had no acting debut even in a drama because I had only done shows until then. I was going to make my debut in NMA. More than anything else, it was more important for me to justify Nabeel’s trust in me.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Mohsin is currently working on a film and plans to take a break from TV plays for a bit. “There are offers for regular type roles but I prefer ones where I can further explore myself as an actor,” he says. “Next, you’ll see me doing something lighter to get out of this image [Dabir] and to relax myself, too.” I point out that someone had to bring Dabir out in the open to the public. Mohsin couldn’t agree more.

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 16th, 2018