Best known for her role as Khoobsurat in Bulbulay and Natasha in Ladies Park, Ayesha Omar has become one of the most demanding and reputed stars of Pakistani industry. She is now all set to prove her competencies in her upcoming films.
Speaking to Instep, Ayesha opened up about her career, movies and the surgery as well. “With a sitcom like Bulbulay that is on-air four times a day, there is truly a lot of exposure and I can’t control that,” she observed. “I am always on people’s TV screens and they feel I’m a part of their lives, their households. With movie-stars, there is a little distance because there isn’t as much accessibility.”
Sharing details about her film, “Rehbraa is spread-out in different parts of the country. From interior Punjab and Sindh to Lahore and Karachi, we’re constantly travelling while shooting. This also happens to be our crew’s first experience on a film so naturally things weren’t always organized; there were delays and basically a lot of trial and error. But I don’t blame them. Since we’re a growing industry we don’t have infrastructure in place just yet, we don’t have trained teams,” said Ayesha.
Discussing her experience on the film further, Ayesha said, “Our director is someone who knows his craft really well and is also able to tell his actors what he expects from them. In Pakistan, mostly directors let actors explore their characters but actors love being directed and that is something that I’ve experienced on Rehbraa’s set.”
In Rehbra, Ayesha will play the role of a middle-class girl named Bubbly who lives in Punjab.
“If I have an emotional scene, if I am crying the entire day or I’m howling in a cave, I obviously can’t snap out of it the very next minute,” explained Omar. “Some characters I had also gotten very attached to because I had started seeing things through their perspective. Some I look up to, some I am very inspired by.”
She is scheduled to have a collarbone surgery this June in the aftermath of a traumatic car accident that occurred in 2015.
“I couldn’t do anything for an entire year,” she said recalling the accident. “I still have injuries, my ability to perform certain tasks is currently impaired and I can’t work on projects that involve a lot of physical exertion, dance or travelling since I am constantly in pain, and Rehbraa includes all of that, so it’s been extremely tough.”
When asked about the response on the song, ‘Turn up the Music Mr. DJ’ The bulbulay actress replied, “The moves were adapted according to what was possible for me. The choreographer knew that I had a broken collarbone,” Omar stated. “Even my doctors had advised me to not put that kind of pressure since my body is still compensating for the injury. I had already committed and I am the kind of person who doesn’t back down at the eleventh hour. However, I do feel I could’ve done a lot better. I could’ve moved more freely and with abandon.”
She further said, “People don’t realize it because they don’t see it. A lot of people around me still don’t know that I have a broken bone, because they think I’m completely healed. You can’t always complain and crib. This industry is so cut-throat and ruthless that nobody even cares about what you’re going through. They just believe in face-value.”
Ayesha is not bothered if the screen time is less, “For some people it is but for me it’s not an issue because that is something secondary. With Yalghaar, it wasn’t a concern because I knew that the entire film revolves around my character. I am not bothered about the number of scenes I have because I know every scene I’ve done will leave an impact.”
In the age of social media, privacy is a luxury. “People get a sneak peek into our personal lives. It is quite an invasion of privacy.”
“It has shortened the duration of time it took in becoming a star. Some people also start setting their value on the basis of the number of followers they have. We need to understand that our masses are not on Instagram or Snapchat. I’ve shot in villages and I go up-north and everyone recognizes me, not because I’m on social media, but because they watch Bulbulay.”
When asked about her co-actors, “We’ve been working for so long and we’ve gotten used to shooting in all sorts of conditions. We put up a front and never let the off-camera drama show on the camera. Newcomers are not used to that but I don’t blame them because it takes time and patience to get to that stage. When one starts off, comfort is something that is taken into consideration, but that can’t be. The show simply must go on,” she concluded.
