Faysal Quraishi, who has recently launched a line of perfumes — Encounter Scents — is not exploring another business prospect for the first time. He has previously tried his hands at a few things, production being one of them. When asked how important it is for actors from our industry to dabble into other businesses, Faysal shared that this is a normal practice worldwide.

“Globally, stars open big labels and brands but we only dabble in small ventures. Stars have this trust that people love them so their labels will get popular too. However, in my case, I have done around 70 to 80 drama serials so far in my career and then telefilms as well. So, the biggest issue here is that if I was being paid royalties for my work, I would have been living peacefully, after owning a 2000-yard house by now along with several other achievements,” he shared in a chat with Hassan Choudary of Something Haute.

Talking about the issue of royalties for artists, which was recently raised by many actors on social media, Faysal said that “it is not just for the actors; it is equally beneficial for the producer, director, writer, actors and technicians who have worked hard on making a project. Unfortunately, our hard work keeps getting sold over and over but we get zilch,” he said.

Read: Video: Faysal Quraishi answers questions about his character & responds to the criticism on ‘Fitoor’

Addressing what the issue is at its core, the actor said that we (artists) have to add the clause about royalties in our contracts.

“There was a clause about it in the contracts when I was a child artist during the PTV era. I used to get money when my dramas were aired again. Then, that clause was removed due to reasons unknown to me, but a lot of senior actors fought against the change at that time. However, many gave in and started working so it was normalized,” the actor explained.

“I spoke to some channel (heads) on this issue and they complain that they don’t get as much returns as it should be. To some extent, they are also right. I think our biggest problem is that we don’t let our own things prosper. It will be very difficult for us to grow unless we go to international digital portals. We’ve recently seen how our channels suffered in the pandemic last year. Our channels are dependent on ad revenue, not subscription. And it is highly unlikely that this issue will resolve unless we stop depending on ads,” he added.

Watch the full interview here: