Pakistani drama ‘Aangan’ seems to have brought forth more controversy than any counterpart serial, from the day Hum Television officially announced that it would NOT be aired on YouTube (yikes) to fans anticipating it being released on Netflix (something that never happened). The drama was one of the most anticipated ones of the year, mostly because it was bringing back the loved on-screen duo Sajal Aly and Ahad Raza Mir after almost a year (‘Yakeen Ka Safar’ being the last drama they both starred in together).
In a recent interview with ‘Something Haute,’ Mawra talked about ‘Aangan’ and revealed that she was not offered the role of Aliya, but was offered another role ten days before shooting commenced.
She said that after ‘Sammi,’ Mawra was “never Aliya for ‘Aangan,'” and that “if [she] had played the other character that [she] had to,” then she would have played it “very differently.”
It was ten days before ‘Aangan’ was about to go on floors when Momina Duraid called Mawra and said that she was going to be playing Aliya.
“Aliya just fell in my lap like that.” The actress said how nervous she was when she found out that she was going to be portraying Aliya. In the interview, Mawra refused to reveal which character it was despite the interviewee insisting she divulges who it was.
Online publication ‘Galaxy Lollywood’ later pushed out a piece where they said that Mawra was referring to the role of Chammi, which was played by Sajal Aly.
Mawra responded to the Instagram post published by the publication and denounced the news as fake.
She said “I never said any of this. Stop pitting actresses against each other. It’s unfair & such news garner so much hate for all of us!” The publication responded “you either don’t talk about such things or the media will report,” before questioning who the actress could have been talking about “other than Chammi.”
Awks.
‘Galaxy Lollywood’s’ post kickstarted a debate online from there on, with various fandoms butting heads with each other over which actress could play Chammi better.
Many felt Mawra would not have done justice as Chammi, and preferred Sajal as Chammi. A few users picked up on Mawra’s comments about how she could have done the undisclosed role “differently,” saying that “she shouldn’t have spoken that she could have done the supposed role differently. It’s like degrading the actor’s work who is playing that part. This has hypocrisy written all over it.”
Users started comparing both actresses’ acting skills and favored Sajal for Chammi, unfortunatley mocking Mawra’s talent.
There were many who defended Mawra and stood up for her in the cage match comments section.
However overall consensus was in favor of Sajal, with overly zealous comments like “Sajal Aly Zindabad.”
Many discussed how Mawra, had she played Chammi wouldn’t “have been this triumphant” and that her statements had resulted in her losing “more credibility” as an actress.
A few disregarded claims that Mawra was offered Chammi, and said it was possible she was given either “Tehmina or Kusum” before “being upgraded when the actor playing Aliya dropped out.”
Mawra was called out for displaying “hypocrisy.”
Having seen the interview, Mawra never implied it was Chammi – so to have the rumor mill ablaze is both unfortunate and unnecessary!
Mawra’s remarks in the interview have been blown out of proportion – she was just being honest and stated that she did NOT wish to explicitly mention which character she was offered because she had immense respect for the actor who filled those shoes. Mawra maintained dignity in her comments and insisted that she wished to remain hushed up about revealing the character because she was very close to the actor who ended up taking that role. All she said was that she’d have done the role differently – as would have ANY other actor in this situation (that’s the beauty of actors, each one is so different and unique to another in how they choose to portray a character on-screen). Either way, Mawra respectively shined as Aliya on ‘Aangan’ and I know for a FACT that this girl would have done brilliantly in any role given to her. What are your thoughts on Mawra’s comments?
Here’s Mawra’s full interview:
We have reached out to Mawra and her team for an official statement.