Although actress Soniya Hussyn’s comment on the mental illness in drama serial ‘Saraab‘ caught attention for all the wrong reasons, Sami Khan might have set things straight. The actor opened up about his character and the importance of the content of this drama serial.
Sami Khan plays Asfandyar, the husband of Hoorain who is a schizophrenic patient, in Saraab. The actor plays the real Asfandyar in the flesh, and the hallucination of her husband that only Hoorian sees.
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The Inkaar actor spoke to Fuschia Magazine about the challenges of the role and the story. Both the real Asfandyar and the hallucination only Hoorain can see, look the exact same. This really provides insight into why Schizophrenic patients don’t have a grasp on reality. They cannot tell apart what is real and what is imaginary.
“In further episodes you will get to see that the story and content is different from the typical stories we show to our audience. We decided to make the appearance same for both the characters which I play. It was very challenging for me to perform two different characters in one look”
Sami Khan opened up about how they tried to portray events as realistically as possible. Delving more into the importance of the drama serial’s content and awareness about mental illness, he said;
“Saraab was a very challenging project for all of us. The drama has different content and story but we knew that it would not get a lot of ratings. It is a story of a disease which most of the people are unaware of. Saraab is very close to my heart and the story is very close to the reality”.
The Ishq Zahey Naseeb chose to not do his research on mental illness to keep his on-screen reactions authentic. Basically, the drama series is a love story and Sami Khan wanted to portray Asfandyar as a strong character that sticks through challenges to save his marriage.
“It is a true love story. Things will get more intense as the episodes will pass. Asfandyar will get to know a lot more things about Hoorain. Sonya Hussyn is a versatile and brilliant actress to work with”,
While Sami’s lack of research helped him play his role better, he asserted that Sonya Hussyn had met with many patients to learn as much as she can about Schizophrenia. She still had a slip up though.
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Previously, when people pointed out Autism was listed among mental illnesses in a poster Sonya Hussyn shared for drama serial Saraab, the actress made matters worse. Netizens slammed the actress for not doing her research as she claimed, ‘Autism is a symptom of Schizophrenia’.
The public was flabbergasted by how the ignorance of an artist set to portray a Schizophrenic patient on screen would further fuel misunderstandings about mental illness.
