Hamza Ali Abbasi dishes on acting under Bilal Lashari’s direction in ‘Maula Jatt’

Hamza Ali Abbasi opened up on how he transformed himself into the iconic character of Noori Natt under the direction of Bilal Lashari in the highly anticipated movie The Legend of Maula Jatt.

The Parwaz Hai Junoon star exclusively spoke to Geo TV about his comeback project following four year acting hiatus, and the equation he shares with the Waar director.

Abbasi was asked if it was Lashari’s guidance that helped him get into the barbaric role, previously played by Mustafa Qureshi, or did he have to bring out something from within to transform into the character.

“It was a joint effort,” the 38-year-old actor responded, adding, “Bilal Lashari is the kind of director who gives you the overall arc of the character, basically the general idea of it and then he’s somebody who will let you play with it.”

“So I have that basic idea with me, then to fill the specific colours in the character, Billy [Lashari] gave me a free hand saying you do whatever you want. He said ‘Go nuts with it,’” Abbasi shared with a laugh, revealing, “That’s why he lovingly calls me Noori Nuts.”

“Yeah.. so it’s like that he gave me a lot of freedom to portray the role however I want to,” the Alif star further said while adding, “And I think this is how it should be like.”

The actor continued: “The director or the writer should give the actor the arc then give him the margin or the creative freedom so that the actor could fill in some colour of his own in the character."

Abbasi will be sharing the screen with Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan in the remake of the 1979 cult classic of the same name – set to hit the theaters globally on October 13th 2022.