“I am not part of the media circus — and I don’t need to be,” he quipped to me. I had just met the veteran actor Naumaan Ijaz for the first time on a flight to Lahore where we were both scheduled to attend a cultural event.
The truth in his words rang out over the course of our one-and-a-half-hour-long journey. Passengers passing down the aisle stopped to shake his hand. One asked for an autograph, addressing him with the name of a character that he had played many years ago — the true measure of a successful performance, I felt. The flight staff made sure that he got a ‘special’ meal.
Unlike many of his peers, Naumaan Ijaz truly doesn’t need to be part of any media games. The success, the fame and the adulation just follow him naturally. He doesn’t obsess over getting photographed at social events and, yet, fans invariably rush towards him to click selfies. He doesn’t gloat over his extensive repertoire of work nor does he have agents hired to generate publicity for him. Nevertheless, aficionados seek out dramas starring the dynamic actor. They rave about them and the ratings tend to rise high.
Naumaan Ijaz is controversial to the core. The actor and producer openly snubs awards ceremonies, bashes TV channels and, sometimes, gets banned from them as a result. He is not bothered in the least
He is controversial to the core, attending awards ceremonies and openly lambasting them the following day, bashing TV channels and subsequently getting banned from them, hated by many and loved by many more. Bans and controversies notwithstanding, TV producers and directors constantly approach him for choice roles that are often written with him in mind: the lascivious older man entering into marriage with a child, the devious uncle secretly embroiled in torrid affairs and masterminding domestic turmoil, the aging father with a roving eye for younger women. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that perhaps no other Pakistani actor can, at present, enact such complex, multifaceted roles with such ease.
Naumaan knows this — but it doesn’t mean that he’ll post images of his drama roles on social media in order to boost his Twitter following. “Why should I race after these fake measures of popularity when I am blessed with the love of so many people?” he says. “I tweet about matters that I find relevant but I feel no obligation to make daily unnecessary posts. I would rather make an impact with my work. This is what I have always believed in.”
As we sit down for an exclusive conversation, a few months following that fateful flight to Lahore, I get a closer insight into Naumaan Ijaz, the man of many beliefs, some of them quite controversial …
You are often pinpointed as a controversial personality who isn’t afraid to criticise what he doesn’t like, either in interviews or via Twitter. Don’t you believe that you would make more friends if you were more politically correct?
I have many friends and they know that I am not a deliberately controversial person. I can’t be politically correct because it just isn’t who I am. I speak my mind and I speak the truth and after having given so many years to this industry, I feel that it is my duty to criticise what I find unfair.