The trailer for Hindi Medium, Saba Qamar’s debut Bollywood debut, is out and it’s everything one could wish for as a grand entry in an extremely competitive arena. Saba is outstanding in the trailer. We already knew that she is an amazing performer and honestly, loved her as Madam Nur Jehan in Manto. She is just as impressive in the first theatrical trailer of Hindi Medium, if not more, and shares the weight of the film with the award-winning Irrfan Khan.
“We had a great experience,” she spoke with me over the phone, merely an hour after the trailer was released, audibly ecstatic at the response it was garnering. “Irrfan is such a great actor and such a humble man. It was amazing. At the end of the day all human beings are the same but then Bollywood is an established industry; the scale is very different.”
“I had to put on weight for my character,” she shared a little more about her experience. “And I had to train to get my Hindi right. I wanted to get the character right. There were times when I knew I looked bad but that’s what the role demanded. I feel that you have to work freely in cinema. You have to work without inhibitions.”
She shared the on-set experience, recalling “so much passion” in the filmmaking experience. Saba was lucky to have wrapped up her filming before September 2016 but even after relations between the two countries plummeted, there was no angst or nervousness in her relationship with her cast and crew.
Would she be promoting Hindi Medium with her crew, I asked?
“Absolutely,” she responded. “I’ll be traveling for the premieres in Dubai, Canada and Australia.” India is obviously off the list. “In fact Raabta, starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon, is also releasing shortly afterwards and the four of us will be touring together.” Raabta is also produced under Maddock Films.
We deliberately avoided any controversial subject though Saba did laugh at the way the media blew her Salman Khan comments out of proportion.
“I am a no-filter kind of person,” she laughed, explaining how she found it hard to censor herself. And that is what one finds most refreshing!
Back to the film, Hindi Medium targets India’s obsession with the English speaking elite class and honestly, it’ll ring very true for all Grammar School parents in Pakistan too!
