We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Umer Farooq a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Umer, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?
Although, the first time I worked as an actor and got paid for that was in 2006 back in Pakistan, it was a sit-com pilot run or a new TV channel, however, the TV channel didn’t go ahead with the show. After I moved to the UK in 2008, while I was at the university studying Msc. Telecommunications Engineering (I know .. I know) people go wait! what? But when you’re from a working class background you got to do what you got to do. So yeah during my university time I started getting involved as an extra in local TV shows etc but I think the first proper earning that made a special mark for me was from my first short film ‘Trust’ in 2011.
It was a small private production who had advertised the casting call on one of the casting portals I was a member of . When I got a call for an audition it was a surreal experience as I didn’t really have prior training or proper experience but I prepared well all and gave my best at the audition and mind it was an audition over Skype as I was based in Newcastle and the production was down in Manchester and after the first round they asked me to come for an in person audition and it just became very exciting and fair to say I was nervous a bit too. So anyway, I went drove down for 3 hours to get to the audition and got the lead part and I still remember the buzz I got.
We filmed it over 3 days in Manchester, UK and the whole experience was just amazing and a couple of weeks later not only I received a dvd 📀 of the short film in the post but I also earned my first dollar as a lead actor in my first ever short film as well as I received my first ever IMDb credit. 🌟
And definitely something more meaningful to add on my actor’s resume at that time.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
As I mentioned before that I’m from a working class background and I worked various part time jobs during my early college days back in Pakistan and professional jobs after completing my bachelor’s – Whilst I worked different jobs that I didn’t have any experience of before I not only learned and developed the skills to do the job but I also developed this old school technique of ‘Learn By Doing’ and that helped me to set some grounds for taking on anything. Obviously the stage or camera fright was a factor especially when you don’t have any prior training or experience but I took one step after another – like started learning from watching movies and tv shows and from working as an extra on various productions to getting short film and then from there it gave a better confidence to score some more short films, student films, voice over, radio drama, music videos and aah the theatre 🎭
When I was seeking to get whatever featured acting work I was still in my full time professional job in the UK and where I was based had no opportunities so I had to travel a lot down to London, Birmingham and Manchester just to attend the auditions as self tape wasn’t really a thing back then.
So managing all that with a full time job was very difficult and sometimes I missed a lot of auditions and off course I didn’t get part in many auditions I went to and by skipping my work and it became pretty frustrating at times but I just kept managing work and a lot of travelling up and down to get to auditions and on many occasions I prepared my audition lines while I was en route to the auditions.
Every client I have worked with so far has thoroughly admired and appreciated my commitment as many many times even just to get to an audition for a short film or a for some small expenses covered only productions I still went out of the way just to attend the audition never knowing if I was even going to get the part or not. So my first impression for myself and for my client is to show pure commitment to build that first level of trusted relationship and then stick to the work with discipline and commitment that’s something I learned and practiced through out my day jobs career.
In 2014, I moved to Manchester for more acting opportunities I also joined ‘DNA Performance
Resource Acting School’s to learn the craft better
and polish my natural skills, I had also scored a contract with a London based Talent Agency that was also an achievement in its own.
Then there came a point where I wasn’t getting much work as it can happen to any working actor so I came across this audition for a theatre play and mind I had only watched a handful of theatre shows and that’s all, never have I ever had any intention to get in to theatre nor I was taking classes for the theatre. I got a call for an audition and this time location wise it was the other way around it was back up in Newcastle 😅 while I had moved down to Manchester but I still decided to go for it and again the certain doubts of what am I gonna do with a theatre audition? Is it going to be waste of 6 hours round trip drive? But I attended the audition it was for a small theatre group and I must have done something right in the audition to score myself a part but when they found out I’m based in Manchester they were skeptical of how I was going to manage the rehearsals to which I said you let me worry about it 🙂 and that’s how I got my first ever theatre credit but to be honest the whole experience was a mixed feelings of nervousness, pride and a sense of achievement and on my way back I kept thinking to myself it’s definitely different than all the screen work I have done but this element of stage fright was a bit overwhelming experience, but I decided to better it with every opportunity I would get.
I attended a couple of play reading sessions in Manchester Royal and when I went back to Pakistan I started attending theatre auditions back in Pakistan and I managed to score significant supporting role in a critically acclaimed original play ‘Saira Aur Maira’ by Pakistan’s biggest theatre group Ajoka Theatre and I worked very hard on that project and did all in my capacity to learn from doing and used all my prior experience and exposure to work with some country’s veteran theatre actors and when I received a show stopping round of applause in one of my very emotional scenes in the play it just gave me a very fulfilling feeling that I belong to theatre as well ✨
And I kept working hard in theatre and got to play significant supporting roles and in a quite a few famous plays I played multiple significant supporting roles in plays like ‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ with another great theatre group of Pakistan ‘Theatre Wallay’ . Who then offered me the lead role in Moliere’s ‘School For Wives’ and that role that play has it own different class altogether the preparation, the process, the multiple performances at multiple venues in 3 biggest cities of the country and ahh the standing ovations, rounds of applause, appreciation and the love I received has a special corner in my heart.
I have been associated with these two major theatre groups of Pakistan for almost 7 years and I have performed in various original and adaptation of plays so yeah my professional ethics are commitment and working hard on any given opportunity and I put my heart and soul to become the very process and that is my biggest potential.
And then I decided to get back to screen work and my first ever big tv break in Pakistan was in one of the all time hit drama series ‘Mere Pas Tum Ho’ not only was I the part of this great tv series but I also had my main scene with two of the most iconic and greatest actors of Pakistan ‘Humayun Saeed & Adnan Sidiqqui’.
I also played a lead in a telefilm and another cameo in another hit tv series but unfortunately when the COVID pandemic hit, it stopped everything for me where I had no work no activity everything was shut down and while it brought a halt on my progress I went back to my first learning method of watching films like binge watching films and shows, did some reading and had a few online zoom sessions with my theatre group people. But that unwanted long break of months and months kept industry effected for many more months to come but it was the same globally.
And when the work resume I performed in few more great theatre plays.
I moved to USA about 2 years ago but I had bit of hard luck when I came to the USA all charged up to seek more opportunities in my acting career SAGAFTRA strike happened 😕 and nothing was happy for months and months no talent agency was even interested to talk let alone signing you on so I once again decided to go back to Pakistan and straight away started working in another theatre play.
And last year I played the lead role in this amazing play ‘Returning To Haifa’ and this play alone has the most special place in my heart and I’m very grateful to be part of it.
So my takes are rejections, cancellations and setbacks are part of every actor’s journey but keep going no matter how slow or fast is the key, you just remain on the path and when the opportunity arrives you take it on with full commitment and everything else starts to falls in to its place.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I think life it self is a continuous struggle and keeps building your resilience for one thing or another, but when I was back in the UK I became a victim of cyber id theft and that caused a lot of issues , though the law enforcement officials were very helpful and provided all the guidance and support but it just effected me at a very wrong time and that just wasted a lot of time and efforts to get things back on track after a long while and I lost a lot of working opportunities as well as when COVID pandemic happened I was very much charged up I had a couple of projects lined up especially but it all just had to be called off and later got cancelled due to prolonged and uncertain lock downs that really disturbed me badly and then my grandfather Chaudhary Muhammad Rafiq (Late) was diagnosed with cancer I was looking after him for a few months and he was very special to me and I miss him dearly, he lost his battle to cancer very peacefully resting his head on my chest it shook me to the core and I was deeply hurt and saddened and honestly speaking I wasn’t my self for a long time and from COVID pandemic to this I hadn’t work for a long time but again such is life you’ve many ups and downs in form of losing loved ones, work opportunities, health and earning etc but you got to keep sticking your head up and you just got to move forward with whatever you can do in your capacity!
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
They say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one – like many creative headed artists I do dream a bit much as well but I think I have bit of a mystic soul and while I love watching movies and I explore fascinating life experiences through watching all genres of movies in ways of learning and try to find my own narrative about the particular story and characters in the films for philosophical thinking and what not. Last year I happened to read the novel ‘Eve’ by W.M Paul Young – in my opinion this novel has a really amazing, fascinating and thought provoking mixtures of sy-fi, suspense, drama, emotions, spiritualism and some religious factors; this book definitely shifted certain perspectives for me for good and over all it’s and amazing read. As for my entrepreneurial thinking and skills I love watching that outstanding British entrepreneurs show ‘Dragon’s Den’ it shows quite useful insights of how a simple idea can be brought in to life and developed in to a business by the help and support of Entrepreneur Gurus and it’s definitely better than the shark tank 😁
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