The fantastic Mr. Abbasi – Part 2

The triumph of Asim Abbasi’s British shows cannot be overstated. As this story is being written, the BBC and BritBox have confirmed that a three-episode Christmas special of The Other Bennet Sister is in the pipeline. Sarah Quintrell is returning as the writer for all three parts with storylines by author Janice Hadlow. More to the point, series director Asim Abbasi is also returning to direct the three-part special. In this concluding part of the interview, Asim Abbasi talks about what it has been like to shoot a period piece like The Other Bennet Sister and a lot more…

Instep: Between The Other Bennet Sister and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, which project pushed you further outside your comfort zone as a director?

Asim Abbasi (AA): I would probably say The Other Bennet Sister. With A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I was coming in as a Block One director. With The Other Bennet Sister, I was coming in as a Block Two director, which covers the latter episodes. I had never done Block Two before. But I loved the scripts so much that I thought, I’m going to do this no matter what, whether I’m doing one episode, the middle episode or the last.

Instep: What were some of the challenges?

AA: During the early weeks of prep, everyone is focused on Block One. You go into pre-production and no one really has time for you, which is fair because they’re all busy with the block shooting first. But you feel out of your depth in those early days and that was something I wasn’t used to. I was used to coming into pre-production with people always having time for me and being able to answer my questions. The other challenge was period authenticity, the way people spoke, the way they dressed, the curtsies, when to put on a bonnet and when not to. We weren’t treating period accuracy as the absolute bible, but it had to be present at specific moments so it felt like we hadn’t completely abandoned the period.

Instep: What about the actors? Did they have a different style of working?

AA: It is very common in British television to block first, figure out how the actors have decided to move in collaboration with the director and then decide your shots. That’s a model Mo Azmi and I have never really followed. We usually shot-list first. We know exactly where we want the actors to move and then we tell them. That’s something I did on most of my shows and also on A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. The Other Bennet Sister brought its own challenges too, adapting to a different way of working alongside the period aspect. Especially with the last episode, making it look like it had scale. Episode ten contains a lot of resolutions, a lot of people talking.

Instep: What do you mean by scale?

AA: I always get fearful with big dialogue scenes. Is this going to start looking like a soap? Is this going to feel basic and lose the scale we’ve been hoping for? Making sure we stayed on schedule and worked efficiently while also constantly looking out for scale was a real challenge.

Instep: How are the protocols different than Pakistan?

AA: In Pakistan, if I put an actor in the water, you don’t need extensive health and safety protocols. In the UK, you have to follow strict procedures. Water safety and all of that became part of the process. It was a major learning curve and opened up a lot of new aspects for me on The Other Bennet Sister.

Instep: Was there anything on either show that completely threw you?

AA: No single situation jumps to mind because those situations happen constantly, mostly during pre-production rather than the shoot. On A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, because the BBC is a public broadcaster, they have very specific editorial policies regarding what can and can’t be shown. There were many conversations around blood, which is central to what Holly has written. The books are called A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, so it was always about doing justice to them while meeting the broadcaster’s requirements.

“I always get fearful with big dialogue scenes. Is this going to start looking like a soap? Is this going to feel basic and lose the scale we’ve been hoping for? Making sure we stayed on

schedule and worked efficiently while also constantly looking out for scale was a real challenge.”– Asim Abbasi on maintaining scale while directing The Other Bennet Sister

With The Other Bennet Sister, a lot revolved around the mountains and lakes. Health and safety concerns were completely valid but became a constant negotiation for me, not because I wanted to disregard anyone’s safety, but because my goal was to deliver what Sarah had written and do justice to the emotional meaning of those episodes. There is always a middle ground and eventually you meet there. But prep is always like putting out fires.

Instep: How does pre-production compare across your different projects?

AA: It varies. Barzakh and Churails were both around three months, because I was writing and directing them. The scripts had to be completely locked before we went on set because we were doing very long hours, regularly fourteen-hour days, something you legally cannot do in the UK. Because of that I couldn’t write while shooting. Those shows also had really large ensemble casts.

Pakistani prep also tends to be longer because there are fewer people. My assistant director, Zoobia, was sometimes doubling as the continuity person or script supervisor. The art department isn’t as heavily staffed as it is in the UK, where you have a production designer who has already done all the planning, an art director and a standby art director who comes in specifically for the set. The dynamics of how responsibilities are divided are very different.

Overall, it feels like you have a smaller team in Pakistan, which means you need a longer preparation period. If you’re coming in only as director and not the writer as well, script development isn’t part of your prep, which is why in the UK, pre-production tends to be anywhere between five weeks to two months.

Instep: Given the success of Churails, was there a point where you thought about doing a second season?

Asim Abbasi: Churails was a major success for ZEE5 and they did ask if I was interested in a second season. I said I didn’t know, that I had told the story I wanted to tell and wanted to do something completely different. They were willing to invest in me and in my story and allow me to tell it. That is how Barzakh was born.

Instep: Would it be fair to say your international moment began with The Famous Five, or did it start earlier?

AA: Actually, before that there was Count Abdulla, an ITV show about a Muslim vampire being chased by a white working-class female vampire.

Instep: This premise is fantastic.

AA: It was a wonderfully crazy show. A comedy, just one season with six episodes. Kaamil Shah, the writer, had seen Churails and was interested in talking to me about directing it. I loved the script and that’s how I ended up doing my first British show.

Instep: Even with all this success, Barzakh underwent a strange backlash. A passion project so personal to you, pulled from YouTube not for legal reasons but out of concern for the people involved. Has any of that affected your desire to work in Pakistan again?

AA: It did, especially after Barzakh. That feeling is slowly waning because wounds heal and you recover. You can’t take Pakistan out of me or remove that country from who I am, so yes, there is still a desire to do something there again. I would be lying if I said I haven’t felt jaded. I have felt that perhaps I’m not meant to make work there. But who knows.

When I was recently in Pakistan, I saw a couple of television projects that gave me hope. But then another part of me thinks, how much sanitisation should there be? When do you stop tampering with your own thoughts, your own vision and what you want to create simply to cater to an audience?

Instep: Is it the audience that has led to disappointment, or the real power players?

AA: The most disappointing element has always been how broadcasters and people in positions of power react when someone creates something different. I don’t know whether they dislike it or dislike the idea of someone doing something alternative. What troubles me even more is when educated people, people who should know better, don’t have the empathy to understand a piece of work.

They can’t distinguish between informing an audience and provoking one and those are two very different things. You don’t have to compliment a piece of work and you are allowed to be critical. But to be irritated or abstain from saying something fair simply because you’re unhappy it got made, that’s the thing I’ve never fully understood.

Instep: Your original work often places women at the centre. Whether it’s an ensemble cast or a fully female-led project, every character matters. Why is that?

AA: I don’t know if it’s entirely conscious. I grew up with a dominant mother and four sisters, the youngest of whom is ten years older than me. I grew up under the umbrella of these five women. I think that informs a lot of it. I’ve only ever been interested in telling stories that I feel aren’t being told otherwise.

Instep: Did you ever watch Bollywood growing up?

AA: I grew up on Bollywood, the songs, the dances, the sarees and all of that. But my sensibility changed as I grew older and realised that the kind of content I consumed wasn’t necessarily the kind I wanted to create.

Instep: Everywhere in the world there is entertainment, but also work that critiques society, challenges audiences and shines a light on uncomfortable realities. Where does your work sit in that?

AA: My focus has always been on outsiders. Even in these recent projects that weren’t written by me, I’m naturally drawn to those perspectives. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is led by a young woman. Mary Bennet in The Other Bennet Sister has never felt complete within her own family. The same applies to my Pakistani work. Those are the kinds of characters that interest me and I’m also drawn to portraying different forms of masculinity. My argument has always been that my entire point is to show different facets of humanity.

Instep: There is obviously a business side to it. How do you navigate that?

AA: My own interest has always been in telling stories I don’t think anyone else is telling. The other stories already have great directors who can tell them. If you gave me something like Jawani Phir Nahi Ani, I would probably ruin it because I don’t think I have the skills to make that kind of comedy that Nadeem Baig does. There has to be space for everyone.

Instep: As a director who tells subversive stories, what do you think has happened to that space? Stories that could be told ten years ago seem harder to tell today. It holds true for India as well, particularly when it comes to films.

AA: That’s a global phenomenon, not limited to Asia, or India and Pakistan specifically. With the rise of right-wing politics and movements like MAGA in the United States, there has been a general closing off towards what I would call otherness.

“One storyteller cannot change a nation. Much of our education, our news media and the way we absorb information is driven by negativity, bitterness and anger. People are constantly fed information that makes them angry and teaches them to fear those who are different. It often feels as though our shared humanity has disappeared.I think restoring that humanity has to begin with younger generations who are taught empathy and to understand people different from themselves.” – Asim Abbasi on the need for empathy

Anyone perceived as other, whether defined by skin colour, sexual identity or countless other identities, increasingly has less space. Even shows made only a few years ago probably wouldn’t get commissioned today. There is a broader global turning away from difference and here in the UK and the US, the debates around trans rights and the violence directed at trans people are a very visible part of that.

Instep: So how can storytellers navigate it?

AA: I honestly don’t know if we can. One storyteller cannot change a nation. Much of our education, our news media and the way we absorb information is driven by negativity, bitterness and anger. People are constantly fed information that makes them angry and teaches them to fear those who are different. It often feels as though our shared humanity has disappeared.

I think restoring that humanity has to begin with younger generations who are taught empathy and taught to understand people different from themselves. Even in the West, children don’t receive enough education in emotional development. In Pakistan, the curriculum focuses on science, mathematics and English, the subjects that will help students succeed academically. But where are the classes on personal development? Where are the weekly sessions checking in with children about how they feel about the world around them?

It’s a long process. Children learn that anyone who is not like them is bad, that another community or another type of person is somehow the villain. It is incredibly important to stop villainising people simply because they are different. Unfortunately, storytellers alone cannot change that. It requires a collective effort by governments, educational institutions and organisations and it won’t happen within one generation. The wheels have been turning for decades to bring the world to where it is today. That’s the sad part.

– Read the first part of this interview in our previous edition, available online.