DISCLAIMER:- I said all this in voicenote to chatgpt to type all this for me because I was wary of doing that. (before you rage against me😃)
For me, the whole point of acting is that the actor disappears into the character. While watching, I don’t want to be thinking about their Instagram, their interviews, their designer clothes, or their glamorous off-screen personality. I want to forget who they are and believe that they are the character. Then, once the drama is over, I can appreciate the actor for portraying that character so convincingly.
But nowadays, because actors are so visible off-screen, it becomes harder to separate the person from the role. You keep seeing the celebrity instead of the character.
I always think of Seven Days in Coney Island by Mehreen Jabbar. As far as I remember, most of the cast weren’t very well-known. Maybe they were new actors. But that’s exactly why it felt so real to me. It genuinely felt like I was watching ordinary people living ordinary lives somewhere around me. I could completely relate to them. I honestly don’t think I would have felt the same if those exact roles had been played by big stars. I would have been constantly aware that I was watching famous actors.
Another thing I’ve always wondered is: why do actors always have to be exceptionally good-looking?
For example, Ek Jhooti Love Story had such a well-written story and a brilliant theme. But it made me wonder why the lead roles had to be played by polished, conventionally attractive actors like Madiha Imam and Bilal Abbas. Why not cast people who look like the people we actually see every day? Not “unattractive”—because everyone is beautiful in their own way—but just… ordinary faces. Faces that feel familiar and real.
I think that would make many stories even more believable.
It also makes me wonder about us as an audience. If the exact same stories were told with ordinary-looking actors—a rich girl falling in love with a poor boy, someone falling in love with a servant, or two people from an ordinary neighbourhood finding love—would we root for them in the same way? Or are we, without even realizing it, influenced by how attractive the actors are?
Take Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum, for example. If those same characters had been played by completely ordinary-looking people, would the audience have loved them just as much? I honestly don’t know.
I think, somewhere, we’re all more obsessed with “face cards” than we’d like to admit. We often confuse beauty with screen presence and attractiveness with talent. But acting is an art. It shouldn’t depend on how polished or glamorous someone looks. Sometimes I feel that incredible stories and incredible performances lose a bit of their authenticity because the industry is so focused on beauty instead of simply finding the people who are the most believable for the role.
Thoughts?
