Saife Hassan is a brilliant Pakistani actor and director who began his career from theatre acting. His debut TV drama was Zaib un Nissa which aired on PTV. He also acted in Ghisi Piti Mohabbat, Aas Paas, and Teri Raza. As a director, Saife Hassan is widely admired for his exceptional work, with major hits like Ehd e Wafa, Sang e Mar Mar, Sang e Mah, Zard Patton Ka Bunn and Tan Mann Neel o Neel. He is currently receiving praise for the horror-comedy play Jinn Ki Shadi Unki Shadi.
Saife Hassan recently appeared on Ahmed Ali Butt’s podcast Excuse Me. During the podcast, he opened up about the Sonu Dangerous controversy and the pressure that is being given to directors by the channels to stretch dramas that receive high TRPs.
Talking about Sonu Dangerous, Saife Hassan said, “It wasn’t Sonu Dangerous’s story — we made a mistake, in fact a major blunder. I never knew Sonu. We had a boy from Tehreek e Niswan who had a dancing group in Karachi; he used to bring his group for drama performances when needed. We used to call him Sonu Danger. I don’t know where he got that name — I think he was inspired by Sonu Dangerous. Mustafa Afridi even asked me if this could become a problem, and I said no, he’s my friend. I didn’t even know about the real Sonu Dangerous. I’m a very unaware person; I don’t know what’s happening around me. I never even met him in real life. Had I met him, I would have apologized.” Watch here:
Replying to the question about directors’ limitations, Saife Hassan said, “Every director working for MD Productions is given the liberty to work freely, especially seniors like us. I can’t say anything about the juniors but yes we do guide them. Ali Hassan and Danish Nawaz are working with Hum and they all have their say. I have never been asked to stretch a play by the makers. Once, I was requested to extend Tan Mann Neel-o-Neel for just one episode because there was a gap coming which needed to be filled so Memoona asked me to extend, and even that became a task for me because it was difficult for me to cut and divide the 70 minutes episode.” Here is the link to the video:
