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Saadia Hussain  Saadia Hussain, model turned actress is an unpretentious professional. It was a refreshing change when she not only turned up for an interview on time, but was also happy to answer questions we all like to ask but dare not with honesty and zest.
“I am an extraordinarily ambitious person” she says candidly “When I first started out on my career, everyone said that I could not do it, especially my sceptical older sisters, but I was determined to prove them wrong.”
Saadia is a familiar face on the mini-screen. Hers is the face that has launched a thousand products from bread, juice, cars to ice cream and dishwashing soap and she has had a successful modelling career in TV commercials and the print media.
She arrived on the scene back in 1995 after schooling at the Gulistan School. Her family is all business oriented and most of them are now settled in Australia.
And now she is a popular actress too.
“I get a real buzz when people recognise me. It’s a real plus point of having a career in television.” Saadia is tall, graceful and full of confidence. Dressed casually but smartly in a green top and black trousers, she came sans make-up but looking fresh and cheerful. She had just got back from Russia where she was shooting a tele-serial and said that the contrast in the weather had played havoc with her skin.
“My obsession is my hair” she laughs “I spend hours on it, contemplating the cut, the colour, the texture. I have tried out practically every hair product on the market from shampoos to serums to gel, you name it and I’ve experimented with it.
Huma (cricketer Shoaib Mohammad’s wife) cuts my hair and we have a very close relationship. I am also very particular about my clothes.” Few people know that Saadia also did a six month fashion design course.
in Sydny, Australia “but you waste so much time putting outfits together, that it gets boring,” she says “I tried it out when I came back, but it was hard work.
” Her favourite designers are Armani, Gucci, Deepak Pervani and Shamsi Malik. Shamsi designs the outfits she wears on screen. “I like wearing skirts and western outfits” she says.
She has the figure for it but confesses that she has to watch it as she tends to put on weight pretty fast. “I am a strict vegetarian. I eat only greens and very occasionally, chicken.
” She keeps to an aerobics routine to keep trim. “I have such a busy schedule, shooting from eight in the morning to sometimes nine or ten at night that I burn off a lot of calories.” Saadia has appeared in epic serials like Jaal which ran to a 100 episodes, Kashish, Dil Darya, Monsoon, Itaraaf (which was her first serial on television) and has been shuttling between three other projects on Pakistan Television – Adha Cherha, Dharkan, Dozakh Raakh., Abh yeh Mumkin Nahin.
Also, playing western girls of Pakistani origin usually in exotic foreign locales, coping with chauvinistic males. “I don’t think that I have been type cast,” she says “If you remember, I played a middle class girl struggling with job and family problems in plays like Dil Darya and Kashish.” In fact, she was nominated for an award in that particular play.
Saadia Hussain appears to be a versatile actress. She has done several comedies too including Dilbar Heights and Agay Agay Dekhye. “Comedy is very difficult to get right” she says” “It is all a matter of timing and rapport with your co-star. It is easy to display emotions of tragedy and histrionics, but comedy situations are based on team work.
If you get a dud co-star, it can sink the whole thing. But thank God, I have managed to play opposite very good actors and with directors who know their job.” She is all praise for Ghazanfar Ali, Rafiq Varraich, Hyder Imam Rizvi and especially Kazim Pasha.
 In fact, she says that Kazim Pasha is her very favourite director. She also includes in her long list actor Nabil, Mahmood Aslam and Kazi Wajed. Her favourite co-star is Shabbir Jan “I feel very comfortable starring opposite him”
She says, Adha Chehrah was going to be a real hit” she says confidently “All the serials that I’ve been in have been hits, but this one was going to be No.1.” She adores Val Kilmer and Julia Roberts too and has seen all their movies. Is she emulating Julia then, one wonders. “Julia Roberts is wonderful. I have seen all her films.
”She says she likes Julia Robert’s style of understated comedy and that she is very choosy about the directors, scripts and co-stars so that she has managed to be consistent in her performance. “The younger crowd is not so discriminating. Their prime motive seems to be money.
They don’t bother to read the scripts, whereas with me, the script is very important. I would rather be known as an actress than a model.” But she likes Zoella, Vaneeza, Natasha, Nadia Malik, Nasdia Hussain, Iraj and Neera.
Considering that she is in great demand both as an actress and a model, Saadia seems to have the best of both worlds “My parents don’t mind my having a career of my own.
They expect me to pursue my own life and earn my own living” Her parents have had no problems with her career “Although I am horribly spoilt and pampered at home. Everyone pampers me, my sisters, my brother, my relatives-everyone.” “I have a very positive attitude to life.
I don’t much regret anything. Once something is done, it’s done and it’s behind you. I try not to think too much about my mistakes. I put it behind me, but I try not to make the same mistake again. I believe that you have to make the best use of the talents that you have.
It is a blessing from God that you have got looks and talent and it is up to you to put it to good use. Everyone should try to get the best out of life. It is no use to get depressed and brood over things.
” Saadia is not very domestic minded but describes herself in a rather contradictory fashion as “fun loving but moody and a typical Cancerian. I have my feet firmly on the ground.” Despite her busy schedule traipsing around to London, Moscow and other places, she prefers to work on home ground.
She has had offers to do plays for Star Plus but the hostility generated by the nuke controversy killed that dead and besides, “Working on locations is a hassle” she says.
“there is so much time wasted in getting the equipment set up, there is interference from passing traffic, unwanted people and getting everyone together. On a prepared set, the lighting is just right, the props are in the right place, the whole team is working together and it is altogether easier.” She also says that modelling is not as difficult as acting.
Still photography doesn’t require the emotional input that acting does. Generally, she says she has had a good press and has a friendly approach to the print media. She is now so well known and has been on so many magazine covers that she finds that she really doesn’t really have to sell herself.
“As for acting, the directors know now that they can put the whole burden of carrying a show on my shoulders and I will do justice to any leading role that they give me.”
She is now setting her sights on directing “Of course I don’t know enough yet to undertake a project but it is an ambition of mine. First, I want to complete this project in London and then when.
 I come back, I will think about what to do next.”Does this include marriage? “Well, I am not actively looking for anyone, but I guess it is going to happen sometime.My dream man would be someone like Andre Agassi!” Someone strong and masculine.
but at the same time with a good feminine streak as symbolised by the famous earring? So will she choose her own man? “It’s going to be fifty-fifty- with me pushing and my family pulling” she laughs.
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